Kraft Heinz

Job Purpose

As the Head of Seed, you will lead HeinzSeed, a globally recognized world-class hybrid tomato seed company headquartered in Stockton, California. You will run the business day-to-day operations with responsibility for safety, production, quality, R&D, commercial, and finance. You will collaborate with peers to build and handle budgets, develop business plans, and overcome obstacles to achieving desired results.   

Essential Functions & Responsibilities

• Lead all aspects of day-to-day business operations, including collaboration with department managers and key partners in developing and implementing the HeinzSeed growth strategy and plans.

• Own the commercial planning process from segmentation through opportunity identification, portfolio strategy, brand strategy, and integrated activity plans to perform analysis and course correction.

• Supervise the global commercial sales organization, operating across 30+ countries with regional sales managers and dealers.

• Provide oversight for Agriculture Research Farming operations in California, USA, and Ontario, Canada.

• Responsible for HeinzSeed P&L, delivering annual performance targets across the entire business and achieving revenue growth ambitions.

• Ensure compliance with KHC internal financial requirements and national and local regulatory requirements.

• Evaluate commercial, scientific, and technical proposals and support cases development where relevant to secure investment for business initiatives.

• Play a key role on the Global Agriculture and Sustainability leadership team, taking ownership of the global seed strategy, including recruiting, building, engaging, and developing an impactful team.

Key Outputs:

• Responsible for leading HeinzSeed to market leadership globally, measured in value market share.

• Grow the global processing tomato seed net sales.

• Deliver annual targets across all functions for HeinzSeed globally.

• Build a defensible competitive advantage that crafts sustainable, long-term shareholder returns.

• Implement the HeinzSeed 10-year strategic plans to deliver total shareholder returns and other financial performance metrics.

• Implement an operating model that guarantees sustained operational excellence in all HeinzSeed functions. 

Encouraged Experience & Required Skills

• A minimum bachelor’s degree is required; MBA and sophisticated qualifications are preferred. Equivalent set of experience, skills and projects managed will be considered as well.

• Possesses at least 10 to 15 years of demonstrated ability in the vegetable seed industry, with 5+ years in processing crops is highly desirable.

• Experience in international seed sales, logistics, operations, and production preferred.

• 3+ years acting in leading a business with full P&L accountability.

• Strong eye for business and interpersonal skills, both verbal and written, with the ability to build relationships with customers, suppliers, growers, industry contacts, KHC leaders, and associates. Multilingual is a plus.

• Results-oriented, adept at solving sophisticated challenges and dealing with ambiguity; anticipates and adjusts for problems and obstacles in the organization.

• Strong strategic problem solver who considers various perspectives and impacts of issues and can project them into the future, anticipating challenges and proactively finding ways to mitigate or solve them.

• Possess a high level of organizational agility, knowing how to get things done through formal and informal channels, and is an effective delegator.

• Priority Setting – Spends time and the time of others on what’s most important.  Eliminates roadblocks for the team and creates focus.

• Experience in developing long-term business strategies and confidence when doing so.

• Steadfast and driven execution to meet commitments.

• Experience in leading multinational teams.

• Willingness to travel extensively domestically and internationally, schedule work hours on weekends and holidays as per seasonal requirements, and not averse to rugged conditions.

• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook).