Sr Manager Growth AI Transformation

Mars; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 170,000 - 234,000; Full time

Job summary

Mars is seeking a Sr Manager Growth AI Transformation in Chicago to lead a senior-level initiative at the heart of a large-scale AI transformation for Global Growth. You will identify, develop, and scale AI-powered initiatives across marketing, sales, and consumer insights, coordinating with engineers and data teams without hands-on coding.

The role emphasizes business outcomes, ROI-driven decision making, and seamless collaboration with external partners, finance, and analytics to land

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in commercial strategy, product strategy, or digital/AI transformation roles.
• Experience growing a portfolio of analytical products and delivering ROI.
• Strong ability to build compelling business cases for senior audiences.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI opportunity scanning and industry intelligence to shape the roadmap.
• Orchestrate a mixed portfolio of AI initiatives with rigorous governance.
• Develop business cases and secure funding across functions.
• Oversee agile delivery with external partners while ensuring business outcomes.
• Drive scaling, governance, and adoption across regions.

Skills

CPG / FMCG background

Commercial strategy

Portfolio management

Stakeholder management

Executive communication

Contract negotiation

Adaptive leadership

Job description

Job Description:

Sr Manager Growth AI Transformation

Function: Global Growth — AI Transformation

Reports to: Global Head AI Transformation, Global Growth

Level: Senior Individual Contributor – T3

Location: Chicago, IL (must be based in, or relocate to, Chicago)

About the Role

This is a newly created senior role at the heart of a large-scale AI transformation agenda within Mars Snacking. The Sr Manager, Growth AI Transformation will work directly with the Global Head AI Transformation to identify, develop, and scale AI-powered initiatives across the Global Growth function and across regional and local markets worldwide.

This is a business role, not a technology role. The ideal candidate is a commercially grounded CPG professional who understands how brands grow through marketing, sales, and consumer insights, and who has used data and AI to accelerate that growth. You will bring enough technical fluency to work credibly alongside engineers, data architects, and platform partners, but you will not build models, write code, or design technical architecture; our technical teams and partners do that. You will be the connective tissue between business ambition and technical execution, orchestrating a broad portfolio of initiatives, managing external partners, and ensuring that what gets built actually lands and creates impact.

Key Responsibilities

1. AI Opportunity Scanning & Industry Intelligence

• Continuously monitor the external AI landscape: tools, platforms, competitor moves, and partner capabilities, to identify where AI can create the most value for our brands and for our Marketing, Sales, and Human Insights teams.
• Translate external signals into opportunity briefs that shape the portfolio roadmap and inform leadership decisions.
• Maintain a point of view on where the industry is heading, ensuring the team's pipeline stays ahead of the curve rather than catching up to it.

2. Portfolio Orchestration & Prioritisation

• Grow and manage a mixed portfolio of AI initiatives, including flagship engines and smaller rapid experiments, ensuring appropriate rigour at each stage of development.
• Inform strategic direction of initiatives to support AI transformation and building of new capabilities; identify and manage interdependencies with enterprise-wide AI plays (e.g. Gemini Enterprise, ODAI, Tech-fuelled sales); identify AI risks and implement guardrails; orchestrate across workstreams to drive efficiencies; and ensure a seamless end-to-end user experience across initiatives.
• Identify and facilitate escalations and decision-points to and from cross-functional implementation teams and leadership to ensure that timely, informed, evidence-based prioritisation decisions are made across competing demands and transformed into tangible next steps.

3. Business Case Development & Stakeholder Alignment

• Lead the structuring and articulation of business cases for new AI initiatives, working in close partnership with Digital, ODDA, Finance & Analytics, and other functions to source funding, to model and measure ROI.
• Own the narrative, translating technical possibilities and data inputs into compelling proposals that secure senior approval and budget.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders across the Global Growth function and in regional markets, and lead discussions in key leadership forums.

4. Agile Delivery Oversight & External Partner Management

• Act as the strategic manager across rapid/agile delivery teams and external partners (e.g. Writer, Google, Fractal, Publicis).
• Define ways of working, set clear deliverables and accountability structures, and ensure development stays aligned to intended business outcomes.
• Apply sufficient technical fluency to challenge, unblock, and redirect technical and partner teams where needed, without replacing the engineers and data scientists.

5. Scaling, Governance & Change Enablement

• Own the path from pilot to scale for validated initiatives, navigating the varying governance and compliance processes across regions.
• Coordinate deployment prioritisation across initiatives and inform the development of training and communication materials in partnership with Capability Building teams.
• Drive adoption by ensuring that what gets built is understood, embraced, and actually used by the teams it's designed for by aligning to Mars’s growth objectives and through continuous user feedback loops.

What We're Looking For:

• CPG / FMCG background required, ideally in snacking, confectionery, or food & beverage, with hands‑on experience in a commercial function (Marketing, Brand, Sales, Revenue Growth Management, or Consumer Insights) or in strategy consulting to those functions.
• 8+ years of experience in commercial strategy, product strategy, or digital/AI transformation roles within complex organisations, including leading data or AI‑enabled products that serve commercial teams.
• Demonstrated experience growing a portfolio of advanced analytical products from ideation through to scaling, demonstrating strong ROI delivery.
• Strong business case authorship, the ability to build the 'why this, why now, why us' narrative for senior audiences.
• Demonstrated experience writing contracts, managing and holding accountable external agencies or technology partners.
• Demonstrated experience building cutting‑edge advanced analytical capabilities and managing cross‑functional teams through a complex organization.
• Technical fluency sufficient to engage credibly with data scientists, architects, engineers, responsible AI board and AI platform teams. This is not a hands‑on engineering, AI architecture, or software development role.
• Comfort operating in a broad, fast‑moving portfolio, able to switch between strategic thinking and hands‑on delivery.
• Outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills across cultures and seniority levels.

Key Assumptions:

• Assumes dedicated support from Finance and Data & Analytics for quantitative modelling within business cases.
• Assumes dedicated support from the Data Office for data governance (this role bridges data stewardship within the business; it does not lead).
• Assumes access to project management resource (internal or partner) for delivery coordination on larger initiatives.
• Assumes Digital Technologies and Data Architecture own technical design and infrastructure decisions; this role bridges, not replaces, that expertise.
• Assumes Brand, Human Insights, and Growth Capabilities associates are embedded into initiative teams as subject‑matter contributors.
• Assumes external partners are already contracted or in a procurement pipeline; this role manages the work, not the commercial relationship.

The base pay range for this position at commencement of employment is between the range listed below, however, base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including but not limited to job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience.The total compensation package for this position will include variable pay, medical and dental benefits, participation in 401k plan, and paid time off benefits.Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an applicant receives an offer of employment.

The pay range shown is applicable to all US locations listed within the job posting: USD 169,840.00 - USD 233,530.00