About Kerry
Kerry is the world's leading taste and nutrition company for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Every day we partner with customers to create healthier, tastier and more sustainable products that are consumed by billions of people across the world. Our vision is to be our customers' most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition. A career with Kerry offers you an opportunity to shape the future of food while providing you opportunities to explore and grow in a truly global environment.
About the role
Preferred Location Global innovation Centre, Naas, Ireland
Reports to President & CEO Europe and Global Preservation
The Vice President of Marketing & Strategy, Europe is a pivotal enterprise leader responsible for shaping and executing the regional marketing and commercial strategy to accelerate growth across our European business. This role blends visionary marketing leadership with strategic execution, ensuring our End Use Market (EUM) priorities are translated into impactful, data‑driven commercial outcomes.
As the senior steward of the regional Marketing function, the VP will elevate capability, build a high‑performing and future‑fit team, and embed best‑in‑class global marketing standards. The successful candidate will also play a central role in operationalising our Go‑to‑Market approach, driving strategic planning, execution mobilisation, and the advancement of key global and regional initiatives.
This position additionally leads the regional sustainability agenda, strengthening our Sustainable Nutrition positioning and ensuring our commitments translate into meaningful commercial impact
Key responsibilities
Regional Marketing Function Leadership
* Bring best in class marketing expertise to the region through the application of key global principles and innovative thought leadership.
* Lead the Marketing function in region to deliver against agreed marketing objectives
* Own and manage strategic marketing, insights, marketing communications, digital/eComm and channel/ brand marketing (including Foodservice, Distribution, Private Label), building ongoing capability and functional excellence
* Create a culture of high performance – and support the development of team members through coaching, feedback, and ongoing development initiatives
* Own and manage the marketing workforce plan aligned to Channel/EUM strategy needs.
* Accountability for regional marketing budget and cost management
* Act as both a functional and enterprise leader, bringing energy, passion and disruptive and innovative thinking to the marketing function and the Europe Executive team
* Strong collaboration with other Regional Marketing VPs to build best practice and a culture of continuous improvement
* Manage and govern Kerry T&N brand and brand portfolio aligned to global brands including positioning, standards and guidelines to generate market demand and to build brand equity
* Accountable for the development and execution of digitally led integrated marketing plans to generate demand aligned to business strategy and monitor effectiveness to enable continuous improvement
* Ensure Marketing function (capability and resources) are future fit leveraging data-driven decisions on resource allocation to maximise business growth and leveraging AI and Martech stack opportunities to enhance marketing effectiveness
Market & Consumer Insights
* Accountable for the delivery of compelling market & consumer insights as well as competitive intelligence to help drive and support strategic and commercial decisions that inform EUM strategy, to fuel the innovation funnel and M&A strategy
* Drive marketing category expertise to enhance Kerry's position as our customers' preferred Innovation partner and as a thought leader in Sustainable Nutrition
* Accountable for regional marketing data analytics to build data-driven insights
Customer Experience/ Engagement
* Set the standard and lead the execution of differentiated Best-in-Class Customer experience/engagement
* Partner with Sales/Commercial Leadership to build marketing-to-marketing and senior level customer intimacy.
* Lead and develop external market presence (tradeshows, events, speaking ops, PR)
* Leverage customer relationships to create customer demand & new business development, converting the Kerry pipeline into incremental revenue, volume and margin opportunities.
Further Responsibilities
Commercial Strategy & Execution
* Serve as a strategic partner to the Regional CEO, Business Unit General Managers and other Senior Regional Leadership in Go-to-Market Commercial design and alignment across End Use Markets/ Channels / Geographies
* Ownership of end to end strategy and execution planning process across all parts of the Europe business in partnership with Global (ranging from regional scanning, strategy build, account planning, execution planning and communication)
* Own the framework for defining and measuring Kerry's addressable market in Europe & defining our growth strategy with associated KPI's
* Accountable for the execution of approved strategic plans i.e. performance vs plan
* Own the commercial link to innovation, ensuring the pipeline and market ready innovation are aligned to EUM strategy
* Continually communicate the progress against our strategy to multiple stakeholders including our Executive leadership team and Board of Directors and at key regional/global forums
Sustainability
* Provide strategic leadership in Europe's annual Sustainability plan and KPIs, to deliver on Kerry's 2030 Beyond the Horizon goals
* Ensure the effective deployment of the sustainability agenda through the commercial teams and act as overall representative for the regional sustainability plan
* Enable Sustainability team in successfully deploying the plan.
Qualifications and skills
Key skills
* Demonstrated capability as an experienced marketing leader
* An enterprise leader with a proven ability to develop and lead a high performing, diverse team and an inclusive culture
* Proven delivery of commercial execution skills to deliver against business growth targets
* Demonstrated ability to formulate long term strategies for growth
* Demonstrated project leadership skills in global and highly matrixed organizations and able to influence without authority
* Highly agile with strong collaborative skills
* Displays resilience, responds quickly to setbacks and challenges, maintains optimism and brings the team with them
* Leadership presence with high emotional intelligence
* Established networks in both industry and marketing
* Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
Qualifications & Experience
* Bachelor's Degree required. Masters preferred
* Solid previous experience in a similar role, post baccalaureate marketing experience in a B2B food industry or related capacity role
* Experience in a strategy planning role, focused on influencing organisations and people
* Experience in Taste or Foodservice experience essential