Cocoa & Chocolate Commercial Leader

Job Purpose and Impact

This role presents a unique opportunity to join one of the most consequential food companies in the world and lead one of the largest commercial businesses-Cocoa & Chocolate-within our Food segment across Asia Pacific. The role carries full responsibility for owning the P&L, setting strategic direction, and driving the next phase of growth through disciplined execution.

This is a critical business leadership role responsible for shaping the long-term direction of the business, delivering near-term performance, and building a high-performing organization across Food SEA & ANZ. The role requires a strong strategic leader who can define a clear, customer-back vision over a 2-5 year horizon and translate it into actionable priorities. You will align cross-functional teams around a shared strategy and drive disciplined execution to deliver strong financial results and build a robust growth pipeline. Equally important, you will strengthen organizational effectiveness by enhancing commercial and operating systems, fostering a high-performance culture, and developing talent to build sustainable capabilities for the future

• Lead long-term commercial strategy, translating market demand & supply dynamics into a focused portfolio and clear strategic priorities.
• Set short-and long-term direction, identifying priority segments and building a capability roadmap that drives sustainable growth.
• Translate market insights, customer needs and commodity dynamics into actionable business strategies.

• Own end-to-end P&L across commercial and trading activities, making informed trade-offs across volume, margin, pricing, working capital, and sourcing.
• Translate strategy into clear commercial actions & ensure disciplined execution to deliver financial and growth objectives.
• Operate with an integrated understanding of commercial operations, commodity markets and the food ingredients value chain.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to drive aligned execution across regions and functions.

• Build and lead a high-performing team, strengthening leadership, talent development, and succession.
• Develop trusted senior customer relationships to drive demand and long-term growth.
• Influence and align stakeholders across SEA-ANZ and APAC to deliver business objectives.

• Bachelor's degree in business or related field.
• Experience in B2B ingredients or commodity-linked business.
• D emonstrated ownership of end-to-end P&L, with the ability to set clear strategy and translate it into growth plans .
• Strong understanding of how sourcing, trading/risk management, and product line management connect, including perspectives on capacity utilization, portfolio decisions, pricing, and margin management.
• Credible exposure to trading and risk management, with a solid understanding of underlying economic drivers .
• Proven ability to build trusted senior-level customer relationships .
• Strong people leadership experience with a track record of building high-performing teams and organizational capability .
• Ability to lead and influence across functions in a matrixed environment.

• Experience in cocoa & chocolate or specialty ingredients.
• Demonstrates strong growth mindset, stretches beyond comfort zone, and shows potential for broader leadership roles .