Greater Toronto Area, Canada
Innovative and strategic category & brand leader with over 20yrs experience. Customer-centric, data-driven, innately curious, and quality-obsessed. Constantly looking for opportunities to differentiate and elevate the customer & brand experience. Fun and inspiring leader that excels at building happy, high-performing, and engaged teams that feel like family. Cross-functional relationship builder and collaborator, with a natural ability to influence and motivate. Solid track record of thinking outside the box, achieving results and challenging the status quo.
- lead the creation and execution of the category annual strategic plans and the category curation, product development, and innovation strategies across our 4 brands - Fresh City, Mama Earth, Mabel’s Bakery, and The Healthy Butcher - category/product offerings spanned produce, grocery, and in-house-made brands (prepared meals, artisan bakery, butchery). The brand and product strategies execute online via Mama Earth channel and through 5 retail brick & mortar locations (Mabel’s Bakery & The Healthy Butcher) - strategic portfolio management approach that prioritizes delivering the right balance between creating a differentiated customer experience, with the required economics, while supporting our mission & values - full P&L accountability across all product categories including managing revenue, COGS, gross margin, and average ticket - built and lead a team of 6, championing communication, development, servant leadership approach, and high EQ and empathy
• Conceptualized and implemented the curation, product development, and strategic operating plans for "Mama's Kitchen" prepared food division ($3.1M annually) and frozen meat & seafood division ($3M annually). • Pivoted product strategy and execution to successfully navigate the complexity of online grocery delivery, category expansion, and food production through 2 years of Covid. • Led the creation of the industry's first reusable branded delivery bin, eliminating single-use cardboard delivery boxes, resulting in $275K cost savings and savings over 550 trees annually!
- Set the strategic direction for the Food Planning Team and establish priorities for internal & external recipe development and product sourcing to achieve company goals - Manage the New Product/Recipe Development Process ensuring stakeholder alignment, budget requirements and cross-functional communication - Sensory evaluation and approval of all new products and recipes - Source and negotiate pricing for all new ingredients, managing and fostering vendor relationships - Motivate, lead, develop and collaborate with a rockstar team of 2
- Sourced and negotiated pricing for all new ingredients - Managed and fostered supplier relationships - Developed new custom products with 3rd party manufacturers - Onboarded new products and suppliers - Managed internal allergen program to ensure the safety of clients - Planned 4 delicious and inspiring seasonal menus annually, enjoyed by 15,000 hungry young eaters daily - Solicited and incorporated cross-functional inputs in order to achieve budget requirements, client satisfaction, regulatory requirements, production capabilities, and differentiation from competitors