Senior Manager, Marketing Services & Operations - Chicago, IL

Responsibilities

• Vendor management: print, POS, and promotional partners
• Own and maintain the preferred vendor roster for print, point-of-sale, and promotional services, including operating standards, approved partners, and quality expectations.
• Directly manage centrally overseen vendors, including briefs, timelines, deliverables, service levels, issue resolution, and performance reviews.
• Define and manage vendor service-level agreements covering production timing, quality, responsiveness, accuracy, and escalation expectations.
• Administer promotional fulfillment partners and platforms for rebates, digital offers, loyalty programs, sweepstakes, and related promotional mechanics.
• Lead vendor onboarding and offboarding in partnership with Procurement and other required stakeholders, and support consolidated sourcing opportunities where appropriate.
• Partner with Procurement on vendor cost analysis, including bid comparisons, pricing reviews, cost drivers, benchmarking, and consolidation or savings opportunities; provide operational input while Procurement leads formal sourcing, contracting, and negotiations.
• Own and communicate the end-to-end POS buy timeline, including briefing, assortment decisions, quantity confirmation, approvals, ordering, production, and delivery milestones.
• Establish and maintain a clear POS buying process that defines required inputs, decision points, roles, handoffs, and deadlines across Brand Marketing, Commercial Marketing, Field Marketing, Sales, and approved vendors.
• Coordinate the annual and seasonal POS buy calendar so brand priorities, market needs, and vendor lead times are addressed early enough to support on-time ordering and delivery.

Requirements

• 7+ years of relevant experience in marketing operations, trade or commercial marketing, vendor management, production, promotions, procurement, or a comparable cross-functional operating role.
• Hands-on experience managing print, POS, promotional, or fulfillment partners, including service levels, timelines, quality, performance reviews, and issue resolution.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing cross-functional processes, workflows, accountability models, and operating standards.
• Strong project and program management skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, stakeholders, vendors, and deadlines with limited oversight.
• Strong communication, synthesis, judgment, and influence skills; able to clarify decisions, risks, owners, and next steps for both operational and leadership audiences.
• Advanced Microsoft Office skills, particularly Excel and PowerPoint, and experience with enterprise systems such as Ariba, Salesforce, SAP, or comparable platforms.

Preferred

• Experience with promotional fulfillment or offer-management platforms such as Inmar, Snipp, or equivalent systems.
• Experience in beverage alcohol, CPG, retail, hospitality, experiential marketing, or another regulated, multi-channel environment.
• Experience with on- and off-premise activation, point-of-sale production, value-added packs, agency operations, and commercial planning cycles.
• Experience supporting platform implementation, data governance, self-service reporting, or digital asset management.

Benefits

• medical and wellness benefits.