Senior Director Business Development & Innovation

Overview

In-office Tuesday through Thursday; visa sponsorship and relocation are not available for this position.

People. Planet. Community. Dairy's journey starts on the farm, and the road we travel demonstrates our unwavering commitment to sustainable nutrition, as our farmers provide lasting and meaningful nourishment to people, the planet and our communities, both urban and rural. We are a nonprofit organization located in the greater Chicagoland area and we're always looking for talented people to join our team who share the passion and motivation to promote the goodness of dairy.

The Business Development & Innovation professional at Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) will lead key strategies that drive incremental category growth and trust in U.S. Dairy. This role plays a central part in accelerating dairy demand by scaling impact through partnerships, inspiring disruptive investment in dairy innovation, and collaborating to increase the reach, usage, and frequency of dairy consumption both domestically and internationally.

This position oversees strategic partnerships with major food service, retail, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. The Senior Director will guide cross-functional teams to explore, build, and commercialize new dairy growth platforms, integrated marketing programs, and breakthrough innovations across these channels. In addition, the role is responsible for broad industry outreach—engaging brands and processors to elevate their understanding of dairy's growth opportunities.

This includes participating in top-to-top conversations with leading companies and representing U.S. Dairy at major global events such as Natural Products Expo, IDFA Forum, and the National Restaurant Show. The overarching objective of the Partnerships & Growth Platforms team is to deliver dairy-centric innovation—including new products, packaging, menu concepts, and brand marketing—that generates incremental dairy sales for both industry and partners.

In addition to driving sales, the role will help build trust in dairy by collaborating with partners to activate programs focused on responsible production, nutrition, community impact, and the taste and enjoyment of dairy. Externally, the role engages with C-suite leaders of our partners and dairy industry innovation, marketing, and corporate social responsibility teams. Internally, it collaborates closely with DMI experts across research and development, nutrition science, strategic intelligence, marketing communications, and sustainability teams to ensure alignment, excellence, and measurable impact.

• Collaborate with individual partners to create dairy sales growth goals, strategies, tactics, measurements and budgets.
• Drive success and provide day-to-day oversight of sales and trust initiatives including:
• New product and/or menu innovation process (ideation, concept development, validation, P&L development, go/no go, launch, ROI)
• Marketing and brand innovation including packaging, advertising, PR, etc.
• Working with and through industry companies to inform, educate and help stimulate dairy growth.
• Lead DMI cross-functional partner team, including R&D, New Product Development, Strategic Intelligence, Nutrition Science, Marketing Communications and Finance to build and lead partner and industry outreach presentations
• Become an expert on the dairy industry value chain as well as DMI capabilities to help inform brands and processors
• Build strong working relationships with key staff at partner and industry companies including Marketing, R&D, Supply Chain, NPD, communications, etc
• Evaluate sales, market and ROI impact of partnership and industry programs
• Lead key presentations internally at DMI to farmer committees and board of directors and externally at key industry events and to senior management at targeted companies.

Bachelor's degree required in business, marketing or related field; MBA preferred. 7 years+ in food industry CPG or other food industry B2C marketing management. Proven success in:

• Developing annual and strategic marketing/business plans to deliver results
• Leveraging data and…