Chief Customer Officer- Retail (Columbus)

Overview

The Chief Customer Officer (CCO) reports to the President, Retail and is responsible for driving sustainable, profitable growth across all retail food channels by leading the company’s end-to-end customer strategy. As a member of the Retail Leadership Team, the CCO owns net sales, trade investment strategy, and customer-level profitability while strengthening strategic partnerships with key retailers. Strong leadership capabilities are essential to success, as this role will set the vision for and lead/develop 4 Customer Vice Presidents and their teams.

The successful candidate ensures tight alignment between Sales, Brand Marketing, Innovation, Supply Chain, and Finance to deliver category growth, flawless execution, and superior in-store and omnichannel presence. The CCO champions a customer-first mindset while balancing brand equity, operational excellence, and financial discipline.

Responsibilities

Commercial & Growth Strategy

• Accountable for the development and execution of a multi-year customer and channel growth strategy aligned with Retail BU objectives.
• Own annual revenue targets, customer plans, and channel segmentation strategies (grocery, mass, club, natural/specialty, foodservice, e-commerce).
• Lead team to identify distribution, assortment, pricing, and promotional opportunities to increase velocity and household penetration.
• Expand presence in strategic emerging channels and omnichannel platforms.

Revenue Growth Management & Trade Strategy

• Own pricing strategy, promotional architecture, and trade investment allocation.
• Improve trade spend ROI and margin optimization through disciplined RGM practices.
• Balance volume growth with profitability, inflation management, and retailer demands.
• Partner with Finance to forecast revenue, manage trade accruals, and optimize customer P&Ls.

Customer Partnerships

• Serve as executive sponsor for key customer accounts.
• Lead high-stakes negotiations on contracts, pricing, promotional funding, and distribution.
• Build collaborative partnerships focused on category growth and long-term value creation.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partner with the Brand & Innovation teams to align new product launches with retailer needs and category gaps.
• Collaborate with Supply Chain to ensure service levels, fill rates, and demand planning accuracy.
• Align with Operations to manage capacity, cost pressures, and execution readiness.

Team & Culture Leadership

• Build and lead a high-performing commercial organization (Sales, Category Management, Trade Marketing) by modeling The Marzetti Way values and Growth Behaviors.
• Develop future commercial leaders through active and intentional coaching and succession planning.
• Drive a culture of accountability, data-driven decision-making, execution excellence and appreciation.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required; MBA preferred.
• Minimum 15+ years of progressive sales leadership experience in retail food or CPG. Experience in multiple sales channels including large key accounts, category management and/or trade required.
• Demonstrated experience leading large, remote commercial teams.
• Experience in managing brokers (or at a minimum third-party sales forces/merchandiser)
• Superior negotiation, relationship building and business analysis skills.
• Exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Strong leadership, collaboration and influencing skills within a direct team as well as cross-functionally.
• High energy, high standards, change agent.

Competencies

• Customer Focus
• Strategic Mindset
• Drives Results
• Ensures Accountability
• Builds Effective Teams
• Collaborates
• Communicates Effectively
• Instills Trust

Working Conditions/Environment

Works in a normal office environment where the employee is regularly required to speak, see, hear, sit, stand, talk, type, walk and bend while moving about the facility. The noise level in the office is quiet. 25-30% travel.