Director, Strategy & Planning (Chicken Category)

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Date: Jun 11, 2025

Location: Chicago, IL, US, 60607

Company: McDonald's Corporation

Company Description
McDonald’s is proud to be one of the most recognized brands in the world, with restaurants in over 100 countries that serve 70 million customers daily. As the global leader in the food service industry, our legacy of innovation and hard work continues to drive us.
From drive thru updates to delivery to mobile order and pay, we are innovating quickly and growing. Joining McDonald's means thinking big and preparing for a career that can have influence around the world.
 

Department Overview

This role is responsible for driving global market share and category growth by developing and executing strategic plans for category management through leveraging insights and engaging stakeholders. It requires a hands-on approach to content creation and collaboration with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment and integration with strategic priorities and successful implementation of initiatives.  The Director of Stategy & Planning (Chicken Category) will drive the development of the category management strategy including planning, and global execution of strategy across multiple pillars.

Duties

•Partners closely with Category Leader to craft category vision and articulate vision/priorities to relevant cross-functional teams, segment, and market leadership teams.
•Owns the planning process by collaborating closely with the Category Lead to provide updates and input into Phase Planning and enterprise roadmaps aligned with Category strategic priorities, while considering current commitments  and integrating segment activities from various markets.
•Engages stakeholders to build trust and support for strategic initiatives, including briefing agencies on strategic branding, partnering with consultant teams for category research, coordinating supplier showcasing briefings and showings, and ensuring engagement with critical stakeholders by providing the narrative and/or other materials to enable consistent delivery in the messaging and requests.
•Responsible for driving execution of category strategy, including aligning with other Strategy & Planning roles to identify where there are conflicts, escalating further prioritization to leadership, and navigating tradeoffs to ensure that key initiatives are completed successfully on time.
•Takes a hands-on approach to content creation to support various stages and needs across categories, ensuring effective communication and alignment with strategic priorities.
•Leverages insights from market data and the 'voice of the customer' to evolve strategy using captured learnings, baselines, and insights from other categories, incorporating these into Category focus areas such as playbooks, and synthesizing and bringing back learnings to the Category Lead.
•Effective self-time management by allocating capacity to various tasks: 40% on influencing stakeholders, 25% on creating content, 20% on coordinating within the category team, and 15% on capturing market learnings 

Qualifications

•5+ years’ experience in strategic planning, category management, project management, or a related function.
•Strong analytical skills to interpret market and consumer data to drive strategic decisions.
•Excellent communication and collaboration skills to work effectively across multiple global teams and with senior leaders.
•Proven ability to manage stakeholders and multiple projects to ensure timely execution.

Compensation

Bonus Eligible: Yes

Long - Term Incentive: Yes

Benefits Eligible: Yes

Salary Range

 

The expected salary range for this role is $168,350.00 - $218,860.00 per year.

The above represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we may also consider your experience, and other job-related factors.

Additional information
At McDonalds we are People from all Walks of Life...


People are at the heart of everything we do, and they make the McDonalds experience. We embrace diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture that means people can be their best authentic self in our restaurants and offices, which helps us to better serve our customers. We have a strong heritage of diversity and representation within our communities, which we are proud of. The diversity of our people, customers, Franchisees, and suppliers gives us strength.

We do not tolerate inequality, injustice, or discrimination of any kind. These are hugely important issues and a brand with our reach and relevance means we have a very meaningful role to play.

We also recognise our responsibility as a large employer to continue being active in our communities, helping to develop skills and drive aspirations that will help people to be more aware of the world of work and more successful within it, whether with McDonalds or elsewhere.


Nearest Major Market: Chicago