Senior Manager, Menu Strategy

Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at homechef.com and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are.

In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready-to-heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better-for-you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our Tempo menu includes options that are protein-packed, fiber-rich, calorie and carb conscious, keto-friendly, and dietitian-approved.

Similar to our recipes, we recognize that variety is the spice of life, and therefore, our employees also bring their uniqueness and color to our fantastic team. We’re eager to work with humble team players and pragmatic next-level thinkers to innovate on Home Chef’s offerings.

The Senior Manager of Menu Strategy plays a key role in the success of Home Chef’s business by running projects within a key team of the menu and culinary process. The candidate will be responsible for ideating, vetting and developing product ideas within their vertical and collaborating with stakeholders across the organization to bring these products to life.

The position is part of the Culinary team within Product and reports to a VP of Product. The role is based in Chicago, IL with some travel.

Detailed Responsibilities

Product Line Ownership

• Run projects within their respective menu vertical(s) (e.g. Extras, Family, etc.) and serve as a partner within Culinary in thinking about the next generation of productsProvide input into future road maps and do everything necessary to ensure successful completion of the related projectsCommunicate and build alignment with internal and external stakeholders to remove roadblocks and prioritize projects
• Identify subtasks and smaller scale projects to collaborate with other Menu Strategy team members with oversight to ensure successful execution

Innovation & New Product Development

• Work with all available internal and external stakeholders to innovate, ideate and develop new products, processes and customer experiences
• Source and stress test new product ideas in collaboration with Consumer Insights, Supply Chain, Marketing, Finance, Culinary, Operations teams
• Interpret data, research and trends that impact the meal solutions eCommerce space and develop actionable insights for execution
• Integrate voice of customer into all aspects of the work and cooperate with Consumer Insights to transform these learnings into tangible actions

Cross-Departmental Collaboration and Execution:

• Collaborate internally with Culinary, Supply Chain, Marketing, Finance, Ops and others to ensure smooth and successful delivery of projects
• Lead working teams to bring new projects from idea generation to full execution and rollout
• Communicate ongoing project updates and priorities within Home Chef to ensure organizational alignment
• Develop and source all inputs to shepherd projects through the Home Chef stage gate process

Product Strategy

• Seek to optimize launched products, thinking through ways to drive improvements to the top and bottom line
• Quantify both historical decisions and future recommendations, bringing forth data driven decisions 
• Collaborate on best practices and share learnings with peers working on other product types
• Set the mid- to long-term product vision for the respective vertical and ensure alignment across Home Chef teams

This position requires 10-20% travel.

Qualifications

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability needed for this role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities.

• Bachelor’s Degree. An advanced degree is a plus 3-6 years of experience in a rigorous fast-paced work environment – CPG/FMCG, product development, innovation, consulting, startups
• Ability to work within a scrappy ambiguous fast-moving environment
• Extremely detail-oriented and organized with the ability to develop and make progress against multiple concurrent project plans
• Data-driven decision maker who can use data to drive, validate and make progress against potential courses of action
• Ideal candidate will have experience working in the fresh and packaged food space
• Self-starter inclined towards finding solutions and who is comfortable working independently and with a team
• Strong communicator and relationship builder
• Intellectually curious
• Must have a sense of urgency and be capable of dealing with fast-changing priorities and ambiguity
• No ego team player excited to solve a wide range of challenges

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