Manager, Market Development & Planning Strategy & Operations - Home

Job ID: 16661 

Location: Atlanta 

Newell Brands is a leading consumer products company with a portfolio of iconic brands like Graco®, Coleman®, Oster®, Rubbermaid®, Sharpie® and Yankee Candle® - and 24,000 talented teammates around the world. Our culture is built on values in action: Integrity, Teamwork, Passion for Winning, Ownership, and Leadership. We work together to win, grow, and make a real impact—supported by a high-performing, inclusive, and collaborative environment where you can be your best, every day. 

Position Summary

The Manager, Market Development & Planning- Strategy & Operations – Home is a strategic and operational partner to the VP of MD&P – Home and the broader Home MD&P team. The role translates priorities into clear operating plans, co-develops practical processes and deliverables with functional leads, and leads selected cross-functional workstreams through implementation and adoption.

The role is accountable for the operating mechanics and integration of Home MD&P, while specialist content remains with business-facing MD&P, Category Development, Revenue Growth Management, Omnichannel, Sales, Brand, Finance, and Supply Chain. Working with functional leads, the Manager helps define processes, standards, tools, templates, decision forums, and performance routines while functional leaders retain ownership of content, assumptions, recommendations, and functional outcomes.

This is a hybrid Manager role with broader strategic exposure than a traditional project-management position. The Manager contributes to long-range planning, fact-based analysis, process improvement, capability building, and high-priority initiatives that improve how Home MD&P plans, decides, communicates, and executes.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategic Thought Partnership & Long-Range Planning

Serve as a strategic and operational partner to the VP of MD&P – Home, helping frame priorities, organize decisions, evaluate trade-offs, and prepare fact-based recommendations.

Support development of the Home MD&P functional strategy, annual objectives, capability priorities, and improvement agenda with the VP of MD&P and functional leads.

Coordinate functional inputs into long-range strategy and annual planning, ensuring assumptions, deliverables, dependencies, and decisions are connected and delivered on time.

Develop analyses, scenarios, decision frameworks, and leadership materials for cross-functional issues spanning brands, categories, channels, customers, or MD&P capabilities.

Identify emerging organizational needs and help define the appropriate owner, governance approach, and work plan.

2. MD&P Operating System, Processes & Governance

Manage assigned elements of the Home MD&P operating calendar and meeting architecture, ensuring milestones, dependencies, decisions, and handoffs are visible and sequenced.

Co-develop common protocols, tools, templates, standards, and decision forums with functional leads to improve quality, consistency, speed, and transparency.

Help clarify roles, decision rights, and handoffs across MD&P and partner functions; document practical RACI and workflow solutions.

Maintain visibility to major initiatives, resource demands, and organizational priorities to support prioritization and capacity discussions.

Operate comfortably between strategic work and detailed execution while protecting functional ownership.

3. Business Planning, Performance & Decision Support

Coordinate assigned Home annual planning workstreams, including timelines, templates, input requirements, leadership checkpoints, and decision logs.

Manage assigned components of Risk & Opportunity governance, including documentation, action tracking, escalation, and closure while functional leaders own the substance and mitigation actions.

Coordinate MD&P inputs to business reviews and leadership forums, synthesizing performance, risks, opportunities, decisions required, and progress against priorities.

Build and maintain scorecards, dashboards, and management routines that improve visibility to execution health, milestone delivery, decision closure, and process adoption.

Partner with Finance, Sales, Supply Chain, and MD&P leaders so plans, forecasts, commercial actions, and operational assumptions are connected and decision-ready without duplicating functional accountability.

4. E&O & Cross-Functional Issue Management

Coordinate the Home E&O management routine, including cadence, data requirements, action tracking, escalation, and leadership visibility.

Facilitate cross-functional mitigation planning with business-facing MD&P, Sales, Finance, Supply Chain, Brand, RGM, and other stakeholders while accountable functions retain decision ownership.

Lead defined problem-solving workstreams for recurring or material issues requiring coordinated action across multiple functions.

Apply root-cause and continuous-improvement methods to translate recurring issues into practical process, decision, or capability improvements.

5. Process Improvement, Transformation & Selected Strategic Projects

Identify opportunities to simplify work, reduce cycle time, eliminate duplication, improve handoffs, and strengthen accountability across Home MD&P.

Lead defined improvement and transformation workstreams sponsored by the VP of MD&P – Home, from diagnosis and design through implementation, adoption, and measurement.

Coordinate change-management activities for new processes and tools, including stakeholder alignment, communications, training, adoption tracking, and reinforcement.

Identify and implement practical automation, analytics, and AI-enabled solutions that improve productivity and decision quality while preserving appropriate controls and ownership.

Develop work plans, governance, and implementation approaches for high-priority projects requiring coordinated execution across the broader MD&P organization.

6. Functional Capability, Tools & Team Effectiveness

Support definition of common capabilities, standards, and ways of working required across Home MD&P while respecting specialist expertise.

Co-develop and maintain the MD&P playbook, onboarding resources, training materials, templates, best-practice repository, and role-specific capability expectations.

Partner with MD&P leaders and HR on role clarity, organization effectiveness, talent priorities, career development, and succession planning.

Coordinate forums for shared learning and best-practice transfer across business-facing MD&P, Category Development, RGM, Omnichannel, and other teams.

Support and develop analysts or other team members assigned to the Strategy & Operations portfolio, building capability in planning, program management, analytics, process design, communication, and change leadership.

7. Executive Communication & Stakeholder Leadership

Prepare concise, fact-based updates for the VP of MD&P – Home and senior leaders on priorities, performance, risks, decisions required, and progress against key initiatives.

Facilitate working sessions and decision forums, ensuring issues are clearly framed, the right stakeholders are engaged, and decisions translate into accountable actions.

Influence across a highly matrixed organization without formal authority, balancing pace, rigor, practicality, and functional ownership.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Finance, Operations, Strategy, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• 5+ years of progressive experience in strategy, market development and planning, commercial operations, sales operations, transformation, program management, or related consumer-products functions.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with cross-functional leaders and subject-matter experts in a complex, matrixed organization.
• Working knowledge of consumer-products planning and commercial processes, including annual planning, business reviews, forecasting interfaces, commercialization, pricing and promotion interfaces, customer planning, inventory risk, and cross-functional governance.
• Demonstrated ability to build and improve processes, operating routines, tools, templates, playbooks, or reporting mechanisms that improve organizational effectiveness.
• Strong strategic thinking, financial acumen, structured problem-solving, analytics, project management, and communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives, manage dependencies, facilitate decisions, and influence stakeholders without direct authority.
• Experience supporting change, building functional capability, and developing others.
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution in a lean, fast-moving environment.

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Newell Brands (NASDAQ: NWL) is a leading global consumer goods company with a strong portfolio of well-known brands, including Rubbermaid, Sharpie, Graco, Coleman, Rubbermaid Commercial Products, Yankee Candle, Paper Mate, FoodSaver, Dymo, EXPO, Elmer’s, Oster, NUK, Spontex and Campingaz. We are focused on delighting consumers by lighting up everyday moments. Newell Brands and its subsidiaries are Equal Opportunity Employers and comply with applicable employment laws. EOE/M/F/Vet/Disabled are encouraged to apply.