The Opportunity: Build the future of one of Canada's most iconic and trusted food brands.
As Brand Manager, Maple Leaf, you will lead one of the most strategically important, high-scale, high-visibility brands in the country, stewarding a brand portfolio that touches millions of Canadians across everyday essentials and high-growth innovation, including Maple Leaf, Prime, Natural Selections, and Mighty Protein. This is a role for a bold, modern marketer and business leader: someone who can translate insight into strategy, strategy into execution, and execution into market share growth, stronger brand equity, and measurable commercial results. You will own the business, not just the calendar, helping shape the future of a national brand at scale, leading breakthrough demand creation, influencing cross-functional decisions, and delivering work that sits at the intersection of consumer love, creative excellence, and financial performance.
Any MLF team member interested in being considered for this role are encouraged to apply online by May 08. Applications received beyond that date are not guaranteed consideration.
Reason for vacancy: Existing Headcount
Compensation: $94,000 - $141,000 CAD base pay annually plus annual short-term incentive
Snapshot of a Day-in-the-Life: - Lead the growth agenda for the Maple Leaf brand across Canada, with accountability for key business and brand metrics including market share, household penetration, brand equity, net promoter score, mix, and profitable sales growth
- Own outcomes, not activity. Set a few clear, material priorities and deploy time, talent, and investment against the initiatives that will create disproportionate impact
- Develop & execute demand creation strategies and tactics both in and out of store. This includes integrated brand growth plans that support share, sales and profit progression across multiple categories and channels. Partner closely with category marketing teams to ensure clear understanding of category needs and barriers to purchase, and to deliver against plans
- Partner with creative and media agencies to develop distinctive, memorable, and measurable consumer experiences that get noticed and drive business performance, while collaborating with all key internal stakeholders for alignment. As the leader, you will protect and compound distinctive brand assets, strengthen mental availability, and remove friction at shelf and online to grow physical availability
- Coach and develop a team of two marketing associates through high standards, candid feedback, active coaching, and intentional development planning
- Understand brand analytics (Nielsen, shipments, communications KPIs) to synthesize key insights and measure ROI and effectiveness of marketing programs to inform recommendations for the brands moving forward. Use data fluently to diagnose issues, identify opportunities, and sharpen decisions with pace and confidence
- Develop & manage annual ad & promo budgets, including monthly forecasting and reconciling, ensuring optimization in all channels throughout the year. Allocate investment with discipline based on strategic priority, incrementality, and return; stop low-impact work quickly to protect resources for the few bets that matter most
- Provide overarching brand stewardship across all channels (i.e. standards, packaging, executional mandatories, communication campaigns, in-store displays etc.). Ensure every touchpoint reinforces a coherent, contemporary, trusted brand experience
- Execute sponsorship deals, inclusive of digital and on-site activations and various partnership assets to deliver maximum value. Build partnerships and activations that create cultural relevance, earned attention, and meaningful commercial return
- Work cross-functionally with Sales, Shopper Marketing, Revenue Growth Management, Innovation, Supply Chain, Finance, and Insights to ensure brand strategy is commercially grounded and brilliantly executed in market
- Champion modern marketing capabilities, including digital content, retail media, eCommerce fundamentals, test-and-learn discipline, and the smart use of emerging tools and technology to improve speed, insight, and effectiveness
What You'll Bring: - Bachelor's Degree plus a strong track record of business results within a CPG environment.
- Must be proactive and performance driven, have a bias for action and be able to work under pressure in a fast-paced environment.
- Experience managing a large complex business with demonstrated success driving brand growth, market share gains, and in-market performance.
- A strong team player, mentor and coach to direct reports & cross-functional team members with well-developed "people interaction" skill set.
- The ability to adapt easily to changing market dynamics.
- A builder's mentality: ambitious, resilient, curious, and energized by accountability.
Competency requirements:
- Commercial Acumen, Budget Planning & P&L Management: Understands the full business model and the levers that drive profitable growth. Fluent in pricing and promotion trade-offs, media effectiveness, portfolio economics, budget management, and margin-aware decision-making.
- Business Understanding and Insights: Demonstrates the ability to understand and draw conclusions from internal & external data sources with the ability to build, track, and course correct business plans to achieve targets. Connects consumer, category, competitive, and customer insight into focused action.
- Brand Reviews & Plans: Leads the annual brand reviews & planning process assessing current business. Plans include objectives and strategies for each opportunity, brand investment levels, volume/consumption builds, risk analysis, and an integrated marketing calendar. Builds plans that are selective, strategic, and executable with a clear point of view on where to play, how to win, and what to stop.
- Sales Knowledge & Connectivity: Demonstrates understanding of customer strategies and motivations and applies to marketing planning process & initiative execution. Works seamlessly with commercial teams to ensure brand ambition translates into strong customer-facing programs and in-market results.
- Strategic Leadership: Demonstrates big picture thinking with an ability to clearly articulate a strategic direction, justified with sound fact-based rationale. Sells ideas and recommendations through to management convincingly. Simplifies complexity, makes clear choices, and aligns others behind a compelling path to growth.
- Strategic Communications: To develop and execute disruptive and breakthrough marketing campaigns and creative, with exceptional verbal and written communication skills. Understands what makes work distinctive, famous, effective, and brand-building and knows how to raise the creative bar.
- Project Management: Experience managing multiple priorities and large business critical projects with timeliness and in collaboration with a strong cross-functional team (both internal and external team members). Operates with urgency, structure, and follow-through.
- Strong Consumer Focus: Consumer obsessed and excited in addressing consumer needs with clear insights and research. Deeply curious about people, culture, and behavior and able to translate that curiosity into sharper growth choices.
- Digital Fluency: Preference for experience in executing digital content campaigns with winning KPIs. Brings strong understanding of modern media, digital content ecosystems, retail media, eCommerce fundamentals, and measurement. Experience using data, automation, or AI-enabled tools to improve marketing quality and speed is an asset
What We Offer at Maple Leaf Foods: - Being part of a high-performance, people-focused company that has an inspiring and unique vision to become the most sustainable protein company on earth, and a deep commitment to sustainable protein across North America.
- An inclusive company culture and a work environment that keeps our people safe, rewards excellence, and empowers everyone to learn and contribute their best.
- Competitive Health and Wellness benefits that offer flexibility to meet your individual or family needs, including programs focused on improving mental health and wellbeing. These benefits start on your first day of employment.
- Defined Contribution Pension Plan with company matching that starts on your first day of employment.
- Learning and development opportunities, including workshops, 'speaker series' events, and resources that allow you to develop your skills and progress your career.
- Comprehensive tuition reimbursement program that supports continuous learning and development of our team members through investment in eligible degrees, diplomas, professional certification, or trades programs.
- Supporting our deep commitment to community impact, we offer up to two paid days annually to volunteer at a cause of your choice.
