General Manager

Context

The Common Market is a nonprofit social enterprise working to build a more resilient and equitable food system. Through a network of regional chapters, we connect family farmers to the institutions that need their food most, including schools, hospitals, universities, and community organizations.

As our national network continues to grow, our ability to deliver on this mission depends on strong, reliable, and values-aligned operations. From warehouse teams and drivers to customer support and sales, our operational performance is critical to ensuring consistent, high-quality service.

To support the continued growth and performance of our Great Lakes market, The Common Market is seeking a General Manager to lead site operations, develop frontline teams, and ensure excellence across warehouse, trucking, and food safety systems. This role will play a critical part in ensuring we consistently deliver on our commitments to customers, farmers, and communities.

The General Manager is responsible for leading and owning the day-to-day and long-term performance of The Common Market’s Chicago distribution facility, with oversight of warehouse operations, trucking, food procurement andsafety, and frontline team leadership.

This role sits at the intersection of operations, people, and performance. The General Manager ensures that systems are executed with consistency and discipline, while also building the structure,continuity,accountability, and team capability needed to support growth.

Working in close partnership with the Executive Director, Sales, Customer Support, and National Operations, this role owns execution through others while ensuring alignment across teams. The General Manager is responsible for delivering operational results while continuously improving systems, processes, and team performance.

This is a highly hands-on leadership role for someone who is energized by building strong teams, improving operations, and driving consistent execution in a fast-paced distribution environment.

The General Manager holds primary accountability for site-level performance, including food and fleet operational execution, team effectiveness, and cost management. This role is expected to operate with a high degree of autonomy in day-to-day decision-making, ensuring the facility and fleet run effectively without requiring constant executive oversight.

This role is best suited for a hands-on operational leader who thrives in a lean, fast-paced environment. The General Manager will directly oversee and work across multiple areas of the business—including procurement, warehouse operations, trucking, food safety, and people leadership—without large layers of specialized support. Successful candidates will be comfortable shifting between strategic leadership and hands-on problem solving while maintaining strong operational standards and accountability.

The ideal candidate is an experienced operations leader who combines strong execution with the ability to build structure,proficiently navigate systems,develop people, and drive performance across a complex, multi-function operation.

They are comfortable leading frontline teams, managing competing priorities, and ensuring that daily operations run smoothly while also identifying and implementing improvements.

They are equally comfortable on the warehouse floor,working with producers and production, reviewing performance metrics, directing staff, coordinating with cross-functional partners, scheduling repairs, and making real-time decisions that impact service, cost, and safety.

• Operational Leader & Owner:
  Leads full-site operations with accountability for performance, safety, and execution.
• Frontlin…