VP Foodservice Canada
General Summary:
The Vice President, Marketing & Sales – Canada Foodservice is a senior enterprise leader accountable for defining and delivering the integrated commercial strategy and results of the Canada Foodservice business, representing approximately ~$100MM CAD in annual Net Sales.
This role carries full accountability for national commercial performance, including revenue growth, profitability, brand strength, and long-term portfolio health. The VP establishes the commercial vision, sets clear priorities, and ensures disciplined execution while shaping the future of the business through customer-centric strategies, portfolio optimization, and organizational capability building.
This role reports to the Senior VP & GM of the North American Foodservice Division (NAFS) and sits on the NAFS Leadership Team, while closely collaborating with the Canada Retail business leadership.
The VP for NAFS Canada must drive growth and performance through the 5Cs: connecting commercial strategy to customers and teams, making bold decisions with candor, identifying growth opportunities with curiosity, collaborating across functions and borders, and owning results with strong execution discipline.
Business Context & Leadership Profile
Canada Foodservice represents a business at a pivotal stage of evolution, requiring a leader capable of balancing performance delivery, portfolio optimization, and long-term growth acceleration.
Beyond functional expertise, this role requires a commercially minded enterprise leader who can:
• Drive sustainable growth within a defined and concentrated portfolio
• Navigate complexity across customers, distributors, and categories
• Strengthen market positioning through disciplined commercial execution
• Act as a catalyst for change while maintaining operational stability
• Build organizational capability and bench strength
Success in this role depends on operating with a general management mindset, integrating sales, marketing, portfolio strategy, and financial decision-making to shape business outcomes.
Key Accountabilities
Enterprise Commercial Leadership
- Define and lead the end-to-end commercial strategy for Canada Foodservice, integrating Sales, Marketing, and Customer Strategy.
- Drive sustainable and profitable business growth aligned with enterprise strategy and portfolio priorities.
- Balance near-term performance delivery with long-term portfolio and brand strategy, making deliberate trade-offs across growth, penetration, and margin optimization.
- Establish clear commercial priorities, success metrics, and execution standards.
Financial & P&L Ownership
- Maintain full accountability for Canada Foodservice P&L performance, including Net Sales, Gross Margin, trade investment, and selling expenses.
- Drive disciplined forecasting, pipeline management, and performance reviews.
- Make enterprise-level decisions on pricing, trade optimization, portfolio mix, and resource allocation.
- Ensure strong financial rigor, transparency, and governance.
Customer, Distributor & Go-to-Market Strategy
- Set the national customer and channel strategy across Foodservice segments.
- Build and sustain senior executive relationships with key operators, distributors, and strategic partners.
- Continuously evolve the go-to-market model to support growth priorities.
- Ensure consistent execution standards while enabling flexibility to win locally.
- Represent the organization in key Canadian industry forums, ensuring strong external visibility and alignment with market trends.
Marketing, Brand & Portfolio Strategy
- Lead portfolio and brand strategy across categories with varying levels of maturity, penetration, and profitability.
- Drive disciplined portfolio choices, prioritization, and investment decisions aligned with growth, competitiveness, and margin objectives.
- Translate operator, distributor, and consumer insights into scalable commercial opportunities.
- Ensure marketing and portfolio strategies are tightly integrated with revenue management, innovation priorities, and commercial execution realities.
- Partner cross-functionally to shape innovation initiatives that strengthen portfolio competitiveness and unlock incremental growth.
- Protect and strengthen brand equity while driving disciplined portfolio choices and evolution.
People, Culture & Leadership
- Build, lead, and develop a high-performing commercial leadership team.
- Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, collaboration, and inclusion.
- Actively coach and develop future leaders, maintaining a strong succession and talent pipeline mindset.
- Lead change with clarity, resilience, empathy, and decisiveness in a complex, matrixed environment.
- Oversee critical talent decisions to ensure organizational strength and continuity.
Critical Leadership Capabilities
- General Management Mindset – Ability to integrate commercial strategy, portfolio decisions, and financial outcomes into coherent business leadership.
- Growth & Portfolio Orientation – Demonstrated ability to manage brands and categories at different stages of maturity, balancing growth, penetration, and profitability.
- Commercial Decision-Making – Strong judgment in prioritization, pricing, trade investment, and resource allocation.
- Change & Performance Leadership – Ability to accelerate business performance while leading through ambiguity and market shifts.
- Enterprise Influence & Market Leadership – Ability to shape strategy, influence senior stakeholders, and represent the organization externally.
- Organizational & Talent Leadership – Capability to build, develop, and scale leadership capability within a lean structure.
Minimum Requirements
• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred
• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience across Sales, Marketing, or General Management roles
• Demonstrated P&L or business ownership experience
• Proven ability to drive growth and portfolio performance
• Experience leading integrated commercial organizations
• Strong financial and strategic decision-making capability
• Experience navigating distributor- and customer-led business models preferred
Working Conditions
- Travel up to 20%, as required by the business.
- Location: Greater Toronto Area
- Hybrid work model.
The Company is committed to providing equal opportunity for employees and applicants in all aspects of the employment relationship, without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, marital status, veteran status, disability, age, religion, or any other classification protected by law.