Senior Director, Strategy & Growth - Cheese

Role Purpose

The Senior Director, Strategy & Growth is an enterprise-focused business leader responsible for translating Gay Lea Foods’ long-term strategic ambition into sustainable multi-year growth, profitability and value creation. The role contributes to the Enterprise 5-Year Strategic Plan, owns the Business’ Rolling 3-Year Strategic Roadmap and is accountable for the Annual Execution Plan.

With an enterprise mindset, the Senior Director, Strategy & Growth leads the Cheese business’ strategic agenda, ensuring clear visibility to priorities, sequenced initiatives, aligned resources and disciplined delivery against strategic and financial commitments.

The role leads the Cheese marketing organization and coordinates cross-functional resources to identify new sources of consumer demand, build a breakthrough innovation pipeline and recommend investments that shape the next phase of growth. It maintains a strong external orientation, grounded in consumers, customers, competitors, category dynamics and market trends.

This is an outcome-accountable leadership role focused on growing the business, not simply managing the portfolio. The role owns the 3-year roadmap, annual execution plan and business performance agenda, working through enterprise partners to mobilize the capabilities and resources required to deliver results.

• Own the long-term strategy and growth agenda for the Cheese Business in alignment with the Company’s Strategic Plan.
• Develop and execute the Rolling 3-Year Strategic Roadmap.
• Translate market insights into strategic priorities, investments, and capabilities.
• Ensure alignment between strategy, financial plans, and enterprise initiatives.
• Lead key cross-functional strategic programs to deliver business results.

• Orchestrate and integrate the Cheese Business priorities across Sales, Operations, Supply Chain, Procurement, R&D, Finance and Commercial Capabilities.
• Build enterprise alignment around strategic priorities, sequenced initiatives and execution plans.
• Demonstrate enterprise thinking by understanding how business decisions impact milk utilization, manufacturing networks, capacity, by-product value streams, customers and overall enterprise performance.
• Foster strong working relationships to drive common outcomes and shared accountability.

• Accountable for Business performance including volume, revenue, profitability, market share, and strategic initiatives.
• Identify risks, opportunities, and performance gaps, leading corrective actions through enterprise governance and planning forums.
• Partner with Finance to evaluate performance drivers and optimize investment decisions. Stay informed on short-term performance and ensure it continues to support long-term strategic priorities and growth ambitions.
• Lead Quarterly Business Reviews and ensure alignment between strategy, IBP, and execution.

• Provide leadership, coaching and development for the Cheese marketing team
• Build a culture of high-performance, accountability and high engagement.
• Ensure marketing investments deliver measurable business results and strengthen brand equity.
• Translate consumer, customer and market insights into strategic actions and growth opportunities.
• Champion a consumer-first and customer-focused culture across the organization.

• Own the Cheese portfolio strategy across brands, customers, and channels to drive sustainable growth and profitability.
• Lead where-to-play and how-to-win choices, including portfolio investment, optimization, rationalization, pack architecture, brand and channel priorities.
• Own…