Director, Retail Operations

Location: USA-Illinois-Chicago

Director, Retail Operations - Mars Snacking

Chicago, IL

The Director, Retail Operations provides critical operational support and strategic leadership for the Mars Snacking US Field Retail Team, ensuring maximum sales execution, retail excellence, and process efficiency. Reporting to the VP of US Field Retail Sales, this role translates commercial strategies into flawless retail execution and leads a diverse operational support and retail capability organization. This position exists to build a highly optimized, tech-enabled, and capability-focused retail support infrastructure that drives volume, share, and category growth across all major retail channels.

What are we looking for?

Bachelor’s Degree, Master’s Degree/MBA preferred

10+ years of progressive commercial and operational leadership experience within the Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPG), FMCG, or retail distribution sectors.

5+ years directly managing people, with a demonstrated history of leading manager-level talent and large, geographically dispersed teams.

Extensive hands-on experience running retail operations supporting major retailers across Mass (Walmart), Grocery, and Convenience retail channels.

Proven background serving in an operational chief-of-staff, COO, or retail operations lead capacity supporting senior sales executives.

What would be your key responsibilities?

Operational Leadership & Field Execution Rhythm

Operating Cadence & Governance: Serve as the chief operating partner to the VP of US Field Retail Sales and Channel Field Directors, establishing and running the operational governance rhythms, business review routines, and day-to-day execution standards for the national field sales

Retail Channel Operations Execution: Drive daily, weekly, and period execution integrity across all trade classes—specifically overseeing tailored operations teams dedicated to Walmart, Grocery, Convenience (C-Store), and Accelerator business units.

Channel-Customer Operational Partnership: Lead the operational translation of customer joint business plans into executable retail action plans, partnering closely with Key Account teams and Field Directors to ensure retail priorities match commercial agreements.

Operational Leadership & Team Management: Lead and develop a multi-layered, cross-functional retail operations support team (covering Walmart, Grocery, C-Store, Retail Administration, and Training).

Field Enablement, Training & Capability Adoption

Operational Training & Capability Rollout: Oversee the Retail Training organization to design and deliver onboarding, core operational curriculum, and field capability programs that build world-class retail sales reps and leaders.

Retail Technology Adoption & Field Enablement: Lead the operational landing, user adoption, and ongoing field compliance for retail technology, sales force automation (SFA) tools, and digital execution workflows in direct partnership with training specialists.

Retail Administration & Operational Infrastructure: Direct the Retail Administration function to ensure seamless centralized support for field retail logistics, equipment distribution, expense tracking, retail communications, and event management.

Commercial Readiness & Continuous Process Improvement

Execution Readiness & Speed-to-Shelf: Lead retail operational go-to-market readiness ensuring materials, retail rep priorities, and store-level actions are synchronized.

Voice of the Field: Serve as the primary operational conduit between the field organization and headquarters stakeholders, synthesizing real-time field feedback to swiftly resolve operational breakdowns.

What can you expect from Mars?

Work with over 150,000 diverse and talented Associates, all guided by The Five Principles.

Join a purpose driven company, where we are striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.

Best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.

An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.

Mars does not sponsor visas for this role.

This position is not eligible for relocation benefits.

The base pay range for this position at commencement of employment is between the range listed below, however, base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including but not limited to job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position will include variable pay, medical and dental benefits, participation in 401k plan, and paid time off benefits. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an applicant receives an offer of employment.

The pay range shown is applicable to all US locations listed within the job posting:USD 169,840.00 - USD 233,530.00