Kerry
Country Head & Commercial Lead - Vietnam
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Country Head & Commercial Lead, Vietnam – Food & Beverage (Retail)
About Kerry
Kerry is the world’s leading taste and nutrition company for food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries. We partner globally with customers to create healthier, tastier, and more sustainable products consumed by billions. Our purpose is to deliver sustained nutritional impact while enabling our customers’ long-term success.
With Kerry, you’re not just contributing to an industry leader – you’re shaping the future of food in a dynamic, purpose-driven environment that values innovation, global collaboration, and continuous growth.
About The Role
As Country Head & Commercial Lead for Kerry’s Food & Beverage (Retail) in Vietnam, you will lead end-to-end business strategy, commercial execution, and market growth for one of Asia’s fastest-evolving food markets. This position offers full P&L ownership and requires a high-performative leader who can challenge incrementalism, accelerate sustainable growth, and align local strategy with regional and global priorities.
Key areas of focus:
- Strategy and execution for Kerry’s flavour and ingredients business in Vietnam
- Performance-driven growth across core categories (Beverage, Dairy, Savoury, Snacks) and emerging opportunities
- Partnership-led growth, balancing engagement with global Fortune 500 food giants and high-impact local Vietnamese players
- Regional advocacy, representing Vietnam’s market dynamics and strategy to the broader Southeast Asia (SEA) leadership team
This is a role for an entrepreneurial top gunsman, someone who can scale businesses in complex markets, build and inspire high-performance teams, and drive innovative solutions that amplify Kerry’s trusted B2B partner position.
Job Title: Country Head & Commercial Lead, Vietnam Position Type: Full-time, Permanent Location: Vietnam Reports to: GM & Retail Commercial Lead – MY&SG, Thailand, Vietnam Classification: General Business
Key Responsibilities
1. Business Leadership & P&L Accountability
- Own full P&L responsibility for Vietnam’s ingredients/flavour business, ensuring sustainable revenue growth, margin expansion, and long-term value creation.
- Define and execute Vietnam’s country strategy aligned with global and regional SEA priorities.
- Identify and unlock growth opportunities across categories, customers, and applications, ensuring aggressive execution against targets.
2. Commercial Strategy & Execution
- Drive above-market growth and market-share gains through a robust commercial strategy and disciplined pipeline management.
- Develop and evolve the route-to-market model, balancing direct-to-customer engagement with distribution partnerships.
- Lead pricing, portfolio, and margin management to ensure profitability in a competitive market.
- Ensure strong conversion rates for projects and initiatives, prioritising investments for maximum return.
3. Market Development & Customer Leadership
- Build strategic partnerships with a diverse set of customers—from multinational food manufacturers (e.g., Nestlé, Unilever, PepsiCo) to high-growth local businesses.
- Navigate Vietnam’s relationship-driven commercial culture, balancing agility with local outposts versus leveraging Kerry’s global capabilities.
- Position Kerry as the most valuable partner for customer taste, nutrition, and innovation needs.
- Expand into new categories and applications, leveraging insights and disruptive innovation capabilities.
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4. Cross-Functional & Matrix Leadership
- Collaborate with R&D, Supply Chain, Finance, and the global SEE network to deliver excellent customer solutions.
- Chair Kerry’s SEA S&OP process, aligning Vietnam’s execution with regional and global directives.
- Be the regional advocate for Vietnam, influencing strategy, priorities, and resource allocation.
- Expand influence in shared services, working closely with Keywords, Curry & Khanh Thanh** for seamless Asia longproductivity.
5. Team Leadership & Capability Building
- Build and inspire a high-performing commercial team, fostering a culture of ambition, collaboration, and accountability.
- Develop next-generation leadership by attracting, retaining, and growing future enterprise performers.
- Align & celebrate successes for team members in cross-cultural collaboration, ensuring division supports(headline enforcement of shared goals.
6. Innovation & Sustainability Agenda
- Drive innovation-led growth by delivering new tools and techniques in Taste & Nutrition.
- Lead implementation of Kerry’s Sustainability Agenda 2030 across Strategic Customer Engagement, embedding sustainable nutrition solutions.
- Commercially prioritise opportunities that enhance decision-making, operational efficiency, and the customer experience, aiming to drive impact on innovation/jobs teams.
7. Governance, Risk & Compliance
- Ensure full compliance with Vietnamese local, energy (GRA) and consumer regulations—commercial standards remain intact.
- Maintain strict governance across contracts, operational principles, and customer engagements.
Qualifications & Experience
Core Requirements
- 15+ years industry experience in food ingredients, flavours, or nutrition space, with deep B2B strategic and commercial expertise.
- Primary tertiary qualification in Business (e.g., Marketing, Commerce, Business Analytics), Food Technology, or a relevant field.
- Proven record as a Country Head, vice-president, General Manager or other senior leadership function, demonstrating P&L impact.
- Track record of building and scaling businesses in emerging markets, particularly Vietnam, ASEAN or China.
- Strong route-to-market experience, including managing multi-channel customer engagements and complex commercial partnerships.
- Detailed visionary thinking: understanding consumer expectations while reconciling supply chain efficiencies with local engagement on a footprint level.
- Techno-commercial background creative ingaining deep insights into branding/channel applications in food ingredients and flavour.
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Required Competencies
- Customer Focused: Ability to build long-lasting relationships, anticipating client needs.
- Allies & Shapes Leadership: Builds alliances across the marketplace, with colleagues to push breakthrough success via the associated model.
- Strategic Rigor: Balances long-term vision with tactical execution, never losing sight of profit growth and trade skills new alternatives.
- Ownership Mindset: Strong sense of responsibility—positive accountability with chain of implementation reachership.
- Above-Average Management Skills: Can lead high-performing, diverse teams with varying cultures, ensuring full insight remains visible at an atomic/big-picture level respectively.
- Leverage Risks BX: Dynamically balances uncertainty while identifying opportunities to evolve Kerry’s competitive advantage across sales and innovation.
- Vietnamese Industry Knowledge: Deep understanding of local regulations, customers, and market structure.
Past Performance Indicators
- Demonstrated the capability to exceed growth targets in competitive Vietnam and fast/emerging markets.
- Experience in mergers, acquisitions, or joint ventures within the business space.
- Strong media and analyst relations into how you’ve positioned Kerry as an innovation playing’s partner.
Key Leadership Competencies
Customer Focus
- Builds strong, enduring partnerships by understanding and delivering customer-centric solutions.
Strategic Mindset
- Anticipates industry shifts and translates insights into breakthrough strategies.
Accountability & Performance
- Ensures high standards, adherence to commitments, even under demanding environments.
Influences & Advocates
- Engages and aligns diverse stakeholders to drive alignment with our vision and adoption strategies.
Drives Vision & Purpose
- Communicates an inclusive roadmap that motivates others to transform customer lives.
Cultural & Collaborative
- Wins colleagues’ buy-in across virtual teams by championing cultural differences while enabling metrics alignment.
Success Measures
- Revenue performance: Consistently exceeds market growth targets for key areas: Beverage, Dairy, Snacks.
- Profit improvements: Achieves margin expansion through pricing, portfolio optimization, trade/supply.
- Market share & competitive focus: Rewards hydrocarbons, increases market perception and loyalty.
- Customer impact: Increases conversations where related partnerships aimed at increasing presence sustainably.
- Swimming-up commercial teams: Criteria centered around engagement, agility, and fostering next-gen leadership.
Our vision points to long-lasting growth, empowerment of diverse voices, and scalable collaborative culture. We desire your creativity and resilience to help drive Vietnam’s SME contribution within one of Asia’s dynamic food markets.
Ready to grow with Kerry? Let’s create the next chapter of tastemakers. Join us.
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