A rare opportunity has arisen for an experienced Commercial Manager to join a major UK food & drink business in an embedded, client-facing “implant” role.

This position is ideal for a commercially minded professional who thrives in a fast-paced retail environment, has strong stakeholder management skills, and enjoys driving projects from concept through to launch.

Working as part of a high-performing cross-functional team, you will take ownership of commercial activity across a key customer programme, helping to deliver profitable growth, strengthen collaboration, and ensure seamless execution across multiple stakeholders.

This is a fantastic role for someone who combines strategic thinking with a hands-on approach and can confidently operate at senior level.

Role Overview

In this position, you will manage a portfolio of commercial projects, ensuring that all activity progresses in line with agreed milestones, commercial KPIs and customer expectations.

You will work closely with internal teams and external stakeholders to coordinate the critical path, manage launch readiness, and support the delivery of commercially successful outcomes.

You will also play a key role in identifying cost optimisation opportunities, supporting new product set-up, preparing milestone materials, and ensuring that all documentation, forecasting and reporting are accurate, timely and auditable.

Key responsibilities

• Manage commercial projects from concept through to launch, ensuring delivery against agreed milestones and KPIs.

• Coordinate the commercial critical path across multiple stakeholders to maintain momentum and alignment.

• Prepare and support milestone presentations, reviews and senior stakeholder meetings.

• Identify and deliver cost optimisation opportunities and commercial improvements.

• Oversee accurate new product set-up and launch planning.

• Track, report and forecast commercial performance and financial implications.

• Support merchandising and launch readiness activity to ensure strong in-market execution.

• Maintain robust documentation, records and communications in line with process and governance requirements.

• Build trusted relationships across internal teams and external partners to enable effective collaboration.

• Ensure compliance with all relevant policies, standards and confidentiality requirements.

Skills & Experience

We are looking for a commercially astute individual with a strong background in food, drink or FMCG, ideally gained in a customer-facing, category, commercial or retail environment. You will bring proven experience of influencing senior stakeholders, managing complex projects, and delivering results in a highly collaborative setting.

To succeed in this role, you will need:

• Strong commercial awareness and a track record of delivering results.

• Excellent stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills.

• Experience working across cross-functional teams and complex critical paths.

• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities.

• Confidence preparing and presenting at senior level.

• A proactive, driven and solutions-focused approach.

• A genuine passion for food, drink and delivering outstanding commercial outcomes.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a respected UK food & drink business through a specialist search partner, with the chance to make a real impact in a high-profile commercial role.

You’ll be working in a fast-paced environment where your expertise, judgement and commercial energy will be highly valued.

If you are a senior commercial professional looking for your next challenge, we would love to hear from you.

Please get in touch for more information on this exciting opportunity or apply directly with your CV today.