Job Description:
Mars: Where your Tomorrow Starts Today!
Mars is a family-owned business that has been making products for people and their pets for more than 100 years. We’re behind some of the best loved brands in the world including MARS®, SNICKERS®, EXTRA®, ECLIPSE®, PEDIGREE®, WHISKAS®, DOLMIO®, BEN’S ORIGINAL ® MASTERFOODS ® and ROYAL CANIN® ORIJEN® ACANA® we are dedicated to making a positive impact on people and the planet.
Join us in building a sustainable future where people, communities, and the planet can truly thrive.
- Segment: Pet Nutrition
- Location: Melbourne, Hybrid
- Reporting to: ANZ Marketing Director
At Mars, we are driven by a shared purpose: A Better World for Pets. We believe that pets make our world better, and we are committed to making a better world for them. As a global, family-owned business, we operate under our Five Principles—Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency, and Freedom—to guide our decisions, support our Associates, and drive sustainable growth.
Joining Mars Pet Nutrition means joining a passionate, collaborative, and future-focused team dedicated to some of the world’s most loved brands.
About the role:
We are seeking a Marketing Operations & Transformation Director to join our ANZ Leadership team. In this critical, senior role, you will be the driving force behind the end-to-end consumer communications ecosystem across Australia and New Zealand. Operating at the heart of our marketing function, you will connect brand strategy, consumer experience, media investment, shopper activation, and digital capability into a high-performing, cohesive operating model.
If you are an agile, data-informed leader passionate about building future-fit marketing capabilities and championing team growth, this is your opportunity to make a lasting impact.
What will you do?
In this role, you will lead a diverse, multi-disciplinary team spanning content experience, shopper marketing, digital transformation, and media. Your core areas of focus will include:
- Integrated Content & Media Strategy: Orchestrate and drive a high-performing media and content ecosystem that strengthens brand equity, accelerates conversion, and improves overall media effectiveness across the entire customer journey.
- Digital Transformation & Acceleration: Champion marketing innovation and capability development across the organization. You will encourage experimentation, simplification, and agile ways of working to ensure Mars remains competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
- Shopper Marketing & Retail Activation: Oversee customer-centric and commercially effective shopper marketing programs that align brand priorities with key retailer goals.
- High-Performing Team Leadership: Lead, coach, and inspire a talented cross-functional team (including our Content Experience Lead, Shopper Marketing Manager, Digital Acceleration Lead, Digital Media Managers, and NZ Media Head). Foster a culture of continuous learning, strategic development, and strong succession.
- Stakeholder & Agency Management: Partner closely with Portfolio, Sales, eCommerce, Insights, and Global Marketing teams. Act as the primary champion of key agency partnerships and maximize our media and content investments.
What will you bring?
We are seeking a strategic, commercially astute leader who can navigate ambiguity and build exceptional, collaborative relationships across a matrixed environment.
- Proven leadership experience across media, digital marketing, content operations, or large-scale integrated marketing ecosystems.
- Strong background in FMCG, consumer-facing brands, or fast-paced retail environments is highly preferred.
- Demonstrated experience leading and coaching diverse, multi-disciplinary teams, with the ability to inspire, develop talent, and build high-performing units.
- Comprehensive understanding of modern media strategy, digital channels, data-driven shopper marketing, and agile content operations.
- A track record of turning complex, high-level business goals into practical, measurable, and highly successful commercial execution plans.
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience in Marketing, with a deep focus on Digital Marketing and modern commerce
Why you’ll love working for Mars:
- Purpose: Help craft beloved brands with a legacy of over 100 years of local manufacturing making products that people and pets will love all while helping to build a more sustainable future.
- People: A culture that values your contributions, fosters leadership, and recognises the impact you make. Your work truly matters here.
- Development: Shape your career with personalised development and real opportunities to grow from day one.
- Enjoy a team and business environment that is invested in helping you manage and grow your energy for work and life.
Skills Required
- Proven leadership experience across media, digital marketing, and content operations or integrated marketing ecosystems
- Experience leading, coaching, and developing diverse, multi-disciplinary teams
- Comprehensive understanding of modern media strategy, digital channels, data-driven shopper marketing, and agile content operations
- Track record turning complex business goals into measurable commercial execution plans
- Stakeholder and agency management experience, partnering with Sales, eCommerce, Insights, and Global Marketing
- Bachelor's degree in Marketing or equivalent practical experience with deep focus on Digital Marketing and modern commerce
- Background in FMCG, consumer-facing brands, or retail environments
Mars Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Mars and has not been reviewed or approved by Mars.
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Healthcare Strength — The benefits package is positioned as comprehensive, with broad medical coverage and additional protections like life insurance and short- and long-term disability. Mental health support is emphasized, including free mental health services and wellbeing programming under initiatives such as Mars Be Well.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave is highlighted as market-leading in the U.S., with an example of 18 weeks fully paid for both parents. Additional family-related leave types such as sick time for caregiving and bereavement leave are also described as part of the overall package.
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Retirement Support — Retirement offerings are described as strong, including 401(k) matching (with a 6% match cited) and pension plans in some cases. The broader package also references retirement savings options and contributions aligned to local market practice, supporting long-term financial security.
Mars Insights
What We Do
For more than a century, Mars, Incorporated has been driven by the belief that the world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today. This idea is at the center of who we have always been as a global, family-owned business. Today, Mars is transforming, innovating and evolving in ways that affirm our commitment to making a positive impact on the world around us. Across our diverse and expanding portfolio of confectionery, food, and petcare products and services, we employ 133,000 dedicated Associates who are all moving in the same direction: forward. With $40 billion in annual sales, we produce some of the world’s best-loved brands including DOVE®, EXTRA®, M&M’s®, MILKY WAY®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, ORBIT®, PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, SKITTLES®, WHISKAS®, COCOAVIA®, and 5™; and take care of half of the world’s pets through our pet health services AniCura, Banfield Pet Hospitals™, BluePearl®, Linnaeus, Pet Partners™, and VCA™. We know we can only be truly successful if our partners and the communities in which we operate prosper as well. The Mars Five Principles – Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom – inspire our Associates to take action every day to help create a world tomorrow in which the planet, its people and pets can thrive.
