Principal Program Lead, Menu Strategy

This person will serve as part of the Menu Strategy team within Restaurant Experience, partnering with key stakeholders and industry partners to develop strategies for the menu that support the overall Chick-fil-A Core Strategy. This professional role requires a self-driven, innovative, collaborative and strategic person. This individual must be an exceptional communicator with the ability to influence across multiple levels of the organization. Additionally, he or she must be able to lead and manage projects with excellence. This person must have strong leadership, a high capacity to influence others, and project management capabilities to drive day-to-day projects and process optimization.

This person will shape the long-term menu and packaging innovation strategy for Chick-fil-A and will present recommendations to the Restaurant Experience Leadership Team and the Executive Committee. This role interacts across the business with a significant number of cross-functional groups to ensure alignment and to provide strategic input. It has frequent interaction with Operators, and also requires industry partnerships to stay abreast of the latest trends to be able to influence future policy and thinking.

This role is responsible for the strategy and communication of the development pipeline which includes product positioning, naming, measurement and partnering on the 3-year Comms Plan. It also has responsibility for sub strategies and will be a Liaison to partners including Customer Digital Experience, International, Business Incubation and Service & Hospitality.

This person must be able to influence the organization on strategic decisions, as well as manage multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring that milestones and deliverables are met. He or she will work closely with Culinary & Commercialization, Packaging, Menu Services, Category Leaders, and cross-functional partners in ensuring that the way we improve existing products and develop, test and roll out new products is done in alignment with the overall strategy. 

Our Flexible Future model offers a healthy mix of working in person and virtually, strengthening key elements of the Chick-fil-A culture by fostering collaboration and community.

Steward Chick-fil-A’s Menu & Packaging Strategy:

• Constantly evaluate the Chick-fil-A Menu & Packaging Strategy and refresh as needed based upon the changing needs of the Chick-fil-A customer.
• Provide leadership, vision and future desired state for the entire menu as well as packaging portfolio.
• Provide strategic input to scope documents which initiate all menu and packaging projects.
• Partner with Customer & Market Insights (CMI) team on research approach for menu and packaging development from "Understand" through "Validate" phases of Innovation Process. 
• Serve as a member of weekly menu development project team meetings. 

Develop 5-Year Innovation Pipeline for Menu & Packaging:

• Develop product roadmap annually and gain senior leadership alignment to shape future investment in menu changes, equipment needs, and restaurant kitchen designs.
• Integrate packaging strategy with menu strategy for long-term pipeline and advanced development synergies to future-proof the menu. This includes providing a recommendation on simplification strategy and areas of opportunity to benefit Team Members.
• Manage the pantry of recipes in development over time, including an approach for an efficient and automated innovation portal.
• Lead primary research projects in partnership with CMI to assess and define various customer needs for the innovation pipeline, including advanced development. 
  Partner with the international team on long-term menu pipeline synergy between domestic and global needs in development as we scale.

Lead Menu Communications Planning & Measurement:

• Recommend optimal product mix for rollout communications plan with Brand Advertising & Media team (BAM) and Rollout Strategy Team (RST).
• Co-lead 3-Year communications plan with BAM team to ensure that the communication of our menu (existing & new) is consistent with our menu strategy. This involves partnering closely with field operations to represent voice of the Operator in addition to voice of the customer, and communicating the plan to the chain.
• Partner with CMI to measure and assess menu and packaging KPI's across channels, presenting to Restaurant Experience Leadership team once per quarter and the Executive Committee as needed.

Build Organizational Awareness:

• Partner with stakeholders to build organizational awareness of menu and packaging strategy, including how we communicate our menu externally.
• Partner with BAM team on menu product claims communications as well as new product names for items in development.
• Serve as Liaison with Customer Digital Experience (CDX) Team on the communication and representation of our menu on all digital properties (i.e. CFA One), including being a critical input partner to CDX-driven menu projects.
• Partner with Service & Hospitality team to shape the future of digital menu board communications strategy.
• Support New Business Concepts Team in shaping new strategies that affect the Chick-fil-A menu, including consumer packaged goods and Little Blue Menu. 

Develop Supporting Strategies:

• Specific needs at times require specific strategies that support the overall menu strategy, such as:
  • Seasonal strategy for items rolled out chainwide on a seasonal, limited time offer basis
  • Regional menu strategy to outline what menu items are sold and featured in restaurants chainwide vs. by market
  • Provide input to category leaders on annual category assessment recommendations

Liaison with Industry:

• Interface with Chick-fil-A’s industry partners and represent Chick-fil-A on panels and at conferences as needed.
• Act as a thought leader that is connected to key influencers and capable of being ahead of trends.
• Monitor ongoing industry trends.

• Minimum of 8 years' experience working in or consulting to business strategy and/or brand management
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills: highly collaborative with ability to build solid working partnerships across functional groups
• Proven success in influencing at multiple levels across an organization
• Comfortable and confident presenting content/ strategy to multiple levels of leadership – Executive Committee, Strategy Teams, Operators, Team Members, etc.
• Ability to synthesize internal and external business insights to interpret data
• Highly self-motivated and able to work collaboratively as well as independently
• Strong desire to learn industry trends
• Sense of urgency
• Experience in menu strategy

• 10 years of experience working in or consulting to business strategy and/or brand management