Commercial Excellence Manager

The Commercial Excellence Manager will be responsible for overseeing and driving the implementation of commercial strategies and initiatives.  This role bridges the gap between strategic planning and operational execution, ensuring that commercial projects and initiatives are effectively executed to meet business objectives.  This role supports the Chief Commercial Officer as required and cross departmental collaborations.  This role can be based in West Lafayette, IN; Cambridge, MA or remote. 

As a Commercial Excellence Manager, you will be responsible for: 

• Project Management: (1) Planning: Develop comprehensive project plans, including timelines, milestones, resource allocation, and budgeting for commercial initiatives. (2) Execution: Consult with commercial project teams to achieve project objectives, ensuring tasks are completed on time and within budget and with proper governance and approvals. Ensure processes and governance are implemented to assure compliance to Inari policies. 

• Risk Management: Work with commercial leadership and collaborate with Corporate Enterprise Risk Management to identify potential risks and develop mitigation strategies to address them.  Track mitigation projects to manage risk to agreed outcomes. 

• Implementation Leadership: (1) Strategy Execution: Translate commercial strategies into actionable implementation plans. (2) Process Optimization: Identify and implement process improvements to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of commercial functions.  

• Change Management: Lead commercial change management efforts to ensure successful adoption of new initiatives and processes within the organization. 

• Milestone and Commercial Objectives: Facilitate the development of commercial milestones.  Track and report milestone status, progress, and any issues to senior management and stakeholders.  Support the implementation of mitigation plans if projects are off-track. 

• Planning and Financial Management:  Support the development of annual commercial budgets with corporate financial planning partner.  Monitor commercial expenses and ensure they stay within the allocated budget. Develop project plan and administer to support development of commercial strategies.  Provide expert advice and insights based on seed industry knowledge and best practices. 

• Commercial Administration: Maintain up-to-date action item documentation, including plans, meeting minutes, and deliverables for the Commercial Leadership Team. 

• Stakeholder Management for Commercial:  Work closely with internal commercial stakeholders, including sales, marketing, and operations teams, to ensure alignment and successful implementation of commercial initiatives.  Work across Inari functions to ensure support and alignment of other functions to support the delivery of corporate commercial objectives, including legal, product development, data science, IT, people team, regulatory and more. 

• Support Continuous Improvement: Implement feedback loops and process improvement to improve organizational efficiency. Collect and act on feedback from commercial team members and other departments to improve efficiency of delivering on corporate and commercial objectives.  Continuously look for ways to improve commercial’s delivery of results 

You bring these key skills and competencies: 

• Project Management: Strong project management skills with a proven track record of successful project delivery. 

• Leadership: Excellent leadership and team management abilities with ability to work across organizational boundaries. 

• Strategic Thinking: Ability to translate strategic plans into actionable implementation steps. 

• Communication: Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels. 

• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. 

• Financial Acumen: Understanding of budgeting and financial management principles. 

• Change Management: Experience in leading change management initiatives. 

Job requirements and qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Management, or a related field (MBA preferred). 

• Relevant professional certifications (e.g., PMP, Six Sigma) are a plus. 

• Minimum of 8 years of proven experience in project management, commercial strategy implementation, and team leadership within a commercial or consulting environment. 

• Licensing, Agriculture and/or Seed Industry experience preferred. 

FOR THE RIGHT CANDIDATE if more experienced and skills beyond this role: 

• Crop Insurance Projects 

• Royalty Reporting & CRM 

• Marketing Plan Fulfillment 

• Commercial Financial Planning 

• Sustainability Projects, e.g. developing markets