Sr. Model Line Business Manager

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At Kia, we’re creating award-winning products and redefining what value means in the automotive industry. It takes a special group of individuals to do what we do, and we do it together. Our culture is fast-paced, collaborative, and innovative. Our people thrive on thinking differently and challenging the status quo. We are creating something special here, a culture of learning and opportunity, where you can help Kia achieve big things and most importantly, feel passionate and connected to your work every day.

Kia provides team members with competitive benefits including premium paid medical, dental and vision coverage for you and your dependents, 401(k) plan matching of 100% up to 6% of the salary deferral, and paid time off. Kia also offers company lease and purchase programs, company-wide holiday shutdown, paid volunteer hours, and premium lifestyle amenities at our corporate campus in Irvine, California.
Status

Exempt

The Sr. Model Line Business Manager acts as the vehicle’s chief advocate, championing and marshaling resources to support, promote and strengthen the model for maximum marketplace success and profitability. As the “go to person” for the assigned model, the Sr. Manager maintains comprehensive knowledge of the vehicle, its target customers, dealer engagement levels and the competitive segment marketplace dynamics to provide input for collaborative development of the near-term sales, marketing and product plans.

The position leads the collaboration with Kia America (KUS) Marketing for the assigned model’s product-market positioning strategy, becoming the messaging subject matter expert and providing strategic review/input on messaging being used to achieve sales and marketing goals. The Sr. Manager will manage up to four assigned vehicle lines with focus on 12-18 forward-looking months.

• Maintain continuous, 360-degree understanding of assigned model’s marketplace dynamics, segment trends, target customers behavior, key competitor actions, model advantages and vulnerabilities.
• Develop clear understanding of target customer priorities through collaboration with research division and dealer communication feedback loop.

• Provide upstream strategic guidance to position vehicle in optimal manner for relevant market differentiation and launch success. Guidance is based on a strong grasp of consumer priorities, assigned vehicle’s advantages, and unserved market opportunities/white space.
• Collaborate with Marketing and Research in developing the target customer profiles and market segmentation strategies.
• Determine and propose prioritized product attributes to be communicated to secure desired market positioning.

• As vehicle messaging owner, the Sr. manager will work upstream cross-functionally, to ensure consistent vehicle positioning and salient messaging of model in all communication touch points (Marketing, Sales, PR, Sales Training, etc.).
• Provide review and input on advertising messaging development to ensure established product attributes and key selling points are represented in a correct and relevant manner.

• Collaborate with field leadership to manage and optimize media messaging and provide strategic and tactical inputs to drive the monthly go-to-market plan.
• Act as KUS Marketing and Product Planning Department (PPD) liaison to all regions for receiving feedback on product, packaging and market needs.
• Provide review and input development of Monroney Labels for accuracy and messaging consistency.
• Design and develop materials to assist dealership sales personnel with understanding Kia’s value advantage positioning for assigned model.

• Collaborate with Product, Sales and Marketing in jointly setting the quantitative and qualitative objectives for each model; and in identifying the key product, marketing and sales programs required to achieve the set objectives.
• Prepare Monthly Performance Reports and Analysis to inform Executive team on various performance metrics such as market share, changes in pricing, incentives, demographics, and cross-shopping.
• Report on sales and trim achievement against plan…