Sr Manager, M&A Strategy (Business Development)

Job Description:
Mars Food & Nutrition has an ambitious agenda to enable healthier and more flavorful eating to become part of consumers' daily lives. As part of this ambition, M&A plays a central role in bringing in brands that are meeting consumer needs in the space of convenient and nutritious meals. This is a highly visible and impactful position that plays a key role in shaping the future of Mars Food & Nutrition. The leader will develop the M&A roadmap and transformative M&A agenda that enables a reimagined business with greater exposure to tailwind categories, geographies, and channels. Together with the VP, the role is a driver of the segment's inorganic efforts and partners with the Corporate Development team on acquisitions, partnerships, and divestitures.
What are we looking for?

• Bachelor's degree. MBA or JD preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years' experience with a background in management consulting, corporate development or investment banking AND operating experience.

• Experience working on previous acquisitions with transaction acumen and financial modelling experience with development / deployment of value creation levers
• Background in consumer goods / familiarity of food & beverage with understanding of retail data and extracting strategic insights
• Experience working with leadership teams and in cross-functional roles that require influencing at a C-suite level and impact with founders, operators and banking partners
• US based experience with ideally a global perspective
• Strong communication skills; ability to communicate complex topics in simple ways

What will be your key responsibilities?

• Translate the Segment business strategy into a credible and compelling M&A strategy - conducting category analysis and strategic planning to define clear choices, search parameters, filtering criteria and investment theses to form an acquisition roadmap
• Partner with the Corporate Development team to develop and maintain a network of private equity firms, founders, and banks for the purpose of sourcing opportunities and building a robust M&A pipeline
• Lead other potential Business Development approaches including licensing agreements, strategic partnerships and distribution agreements
• Develop investment theses and define the M&A pipeline to deliver against it, monitoring targets, and thinking creatively about how to unlock the strategy
• Define the business plan assumptions and drive the financial modeling to ensure that Mars Food & Nutrition delivers value from acquisitions

• Translate M&A strategy and specific deal recommendations into various stakeholder engagement materials including approval papers that lay out the business case, rationale and vision
• Enroll and engage cross-functional deal delivery & diligence support on the commercial and operational aspects of the business including marketing, sales, people, operations
• Incorporate integration assumptions into business cases, support development of the integration plan, and assure proper handoff of transactions to Integration post-closing
• Own Mars Food & Nutrition 'playbook' for how we approach inorganic activities, including best-in-class repeatable analysis frameworks (financial and business) that support decision-making

What can you expect from Mars?

• Work with over 130,000 diverse and talented Associates, all guided by the Five Principles.
• Join a purpose driven company, where we're striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.
• Best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.

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Mars is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process because of a disability, it is available upon request. The company is pleased to provide such assistance, and no applicant will be penalized as a result of such a request.