Commercial Director McDonalds, Americas
Simplot Company
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Job summary
Simplot Company, a global food and agriculture leader, seeks a Commercial Director to drive the McDonald’s relationship across the Americas. Based in Chicago, the role leads cross-functional teams to deliver regional strategy, growth, and value creation.
You will partner with Marketing, Innovation, R&D, Operations, and Supply Chain to push customer-centric solutions and scalable innovations, while navigating a complex, matrixed organization.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
- 12–15+ years of progressive experience in commercial leadership or strategic accounts.
- Proven track record with large, complex customers and RFP negotiations.
Responsibilities
- Own regional commercial performance for McDonald’s in the Americas region, including revenue, margin and long-term value creation.
- Lead development and execution of regional commercial strategies aligned with Simplot and McDonald’s global objectives.
- Identify, prioritize, and advance growth opportunities across product, innovation, supply chain optimization, and execution excellence.
- Own regional leadership for RFPs planning and commercial negotiations, ensuring disciplined, competitive, and value-driven outcomes.
- Translate regional macro and micro business drivers into clear commercial strategies and investment priorities.
- Lead regional innovation strategy in partnership with McDonald’s, including ideation, prioritization, and commercialization.
- Partner with Marketing, Innovation, R&D, Operations, and Supply Chain to advance customer-relevant solutions.
- Ensure innovation pipelines align to McDonald’s priorities and scale.
- Champion continuous improvement to enhance quality, cost, sustainability, and customer experience.
- Serve as Simplot’s senior commercial leader for McDonald’s within the region.
- Build trusted executive relationships across McDonald’s stakeholders; align with third-party suppliers and logistics partners.
- Influence strategic direction through thought leadership and proactive partnership.
- Lead and align a cross-functional ecosystem to deliver commercial priorities regionally and in markets.
- Ensure governance and accountability across initiatives; remove barriers to execution.
- Lead Market Leads and regional commercial teams; build leadership bench and succession plans.
Skills
Education
Job description
The J.R. Simplot Company is a diverse, privately held organization, with roots firmly planted in agriculture and agriculture-related businesses. We are a true farm-to-table company with operations that touch every aspect of agriculture, including seed production, farming and ranching, plant sciences, fertilizer manufacturing, food processing, commercial product development, and distribution.
The J.R. Simplot Company is a global food and agriculture business partnering with customers around the world to deliver innovative food solutions, category expertise and long-term value.
Through our Global Food business, we work alongside some of the world's most recognized foodservice and retail customers, including McDonald's, supporting growth, innovation and operational excellence across global markets.
As a key strategic partner to McDonald's, Simplot plays an important role in supporting one of the world's most recognized and complex foodservice systems. This role is an opportunity to help shape the future of that partnership across the Americas while contributing to broader global priorities.
Reporting to the Vice President, Commercial Solutions & McDonald's, this newly created role forms part of Simplot's Global McDonald's leadership team and plays a key role in supporting one of the company's most important global customer partnerships.
Working within Simplot's Global Food business, the Commercial Director will partner closely with stakeholders across APAC, Americas and EMEA to drive alignment, identify growth opportunities and help shape the future direction of the McDonald's relationship globally.
With responsibility for the Americas region, you will translate global strategy into regional execution, lead strategic customer engagement, and drive growth through innovation, commercial planning and trusted partnership.
Operating within a highly matrixed environment, success will rely on your ability to influence across functions, build trusted relationships and navigate complexity while delivering outcomes across multiple markets.
- Own regional commercial performance with accountability for category growth, revenue, margin, and long-term value creation
- Lead development and execution of regional commercial strategies aligned with Simplot and McDonald’s global objectives
- Identify, prioritize, and advance growth opportunities across product, innovation, supply chain optimization, and execution excellence
- Own regional leadership for RFPs planning and commercial negotiations, ensuring disciplined, competitive, and value-driven outcomes
- Supports the translations of regional macro and micro business drivers into clear commercial strategies and investment priorities
- Lead regional innovation strategy in partnership with McDonald’s, including ideation, prioritization, and commercialization
- Partner with internal Marketing, Innovation, R&D, Operations, and Supply Chain teams to advance customer-relevant solutions
- Ensure innovation pipelines are aligned to McDonald’s strategic priorities and executable at scale
- Champion continuous improvement initiatives that enhance quality, cost, sustainability, and customer experience
- Serve as Simplot’s senior commercial leader for McDonald’s within the region
- Build and maintain trusted executive relationships across McDonald’s Supply Chain, Marketing, Quality, and Field Operations
- Lead alignment across the “three-legged stool,” including third-party suppliers and logistics partners
- Influence strategic direction through thought leadership, insights, and proactive partnership
- Lead and align a complex cross-functional ecosystem to deliver commercial priorities at regional and market levels
- Ensure clear governance, decision-making, and accountability across initiatives
- Remove barriers to execution by aligning resources, priorities, and capabilities
- Lead and develop Market Leads and regional commercial teams
- Build strong leadership bench, succession plans, and commercial capability
- Set clear expectations for commercial ownership, accountability, and performance
- Foster a culture of growth mindset, collaboration, and disciplined execution
- Actively participate in the Global McDonald’s commercial ecosystem
- Ensure strong communication and alignment between Global, Regional, and Market teams
- Educate Simplot stakeholders on regional and market-specific dynamics
- Enable markets to understand and operationalize global strategies locally
- Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or advanced degree preferred
- 12–15+ years of progressive experience in commercial leadership, category management, or strategic account roles
- Proven track record of driving growth, innovation, and commercial outcomes with large, complex customers
- Direct experience leading RFPs, negotiations, and competitive bid processes
- Extensive experience operating in global, matrixed organizations
- McDonald’s or comparable global QSR experience strongly preferred
- Significant experience in commercial leadership, strategic account management or customer leadership roles within complex organizations.
- Proven success managing large, strategic customer relationships and delivering commercial growth.
- Strong commercial capability, including experience with RFP processes, growth planning, commercial strategy and customer negotiations.
- Experience operating across multiple countries, regions or global business environments.
- Demonstrated ability to influence across matrixed organizations and align stakeholders around shared objectives.
- Executive presence, credibility and confidence engaging with senior customer stakeholders, including C-suite leaders.
- A proactive, relationship-led approach with the ability to anticipate needs, identify opportunities and shape future outcomes.
- Experience within McDonald's, QSR, foodservice or comparable global customer environments will be highly regarded
Why This Opportunity
This is an opportunity to lead one of Simplot's most important global customer partnerships. Working at the intersection of commercial strategy, innovation and customer leadership, you will influence growth outcomes across the Americas while contributing to the future direction of the broader global McDonald's relationship.
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Travel: Up to 60% travel across the region and globally.
At Simplot, we are guided by our purpose, We Contribute to Feeding Our World, and by our shared values of Respect for Resources, Spirit of Innovation and Passion for People. We are committed to creating a workplace where our people feel supported, respected and empowered.
**The J.R. Simplot Company is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, physical or mental disability, medical condition, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, marital status, or any other protected status.**
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