This is a remote role with 50% travel; the successful candidate will need to reside in California.
Relocation to California provided.
Sodexo is seeking a Senior Vice President of Operations, Corporate Food Services. This role encompasses leadership responsibility for states dispersed over a wide range from states in the West to states in the South regions. The successful candidate will lead and further develop Food service business in Corporate Services.
In this Senior Vice President of Operations role, we are looking for an inspirational, strong, dynamic, and passionate leader of food & hospitality that can leverage the new food transformation models, company brands, acquire top talent, and continue to grow the portfolio. This position reports directly to the Corporate Services President and manages a team of Vice Presidents direct reports along with a variety of functional support (marketing, culinary, safety, finance etc.).
The ideal candidate will need to have high standards for food and hospitality and be able to translate that into action, inspiration, and accountability within their team. You will be responsible for retaining all current business, developing strong teams, optimizing profitability while growing and selling new business. You must adapt to changes in the marketplace, new food strategies and offers and represent our brand as the local Executive in the marketplace. You are the local executive who must possess exceptional client relationship skills, strong negotiation abilities, provide leadership, strong financial acumen, talent development skills and exceptional presentation skills.
This position will include developing plans with long-range horizons based upon a sound knowledge of corporate expectations (policies, budgets, strategic plans); envisioning intended outcomes and working with others to systematically outline the resources and actions that will be required to produce the desired results; anticipating obstacles to intended strategies and developing contingency plans for use in the event a plan becomes unworkable; and prioritizing objectives to enable the selective allocation of attention and resources.
Responsibilities/ Duties:
- Provide food & hospitality leadership and oversight to drive operational excellence through lean, efficient, and effective practices to support the strategic objectives focusing on growth within the Corporate Services segment.
- Accelerate our growth in new business activities.
- Optimize strategic partners and relationships to initiate appropriate strategies to enhance customer service and fiscal stability of the business relationships.
- Effectively partner with internal stakeholders to drive successful, cross-functional outcomes
- Establish organizational protocols and systems to identify client issues, trends, and opportunities and effectively integrate them into area strategies.
- Ensure appropriate talent is deployed and effective succession, career pathing, and contingency plans are in place for all key positions.
- Drive a clear performance culture across the business. Set clear expectations and provide timely and relevant feedback to direct reports (for developing and improving performance) holding them accountable for doing the same with their teams.
- Resolve client issues and concerns with agility and professionalism.
- Contribute to the innovation of services to expand Sodexo’s Service Solutions for current and prospective clients.
- Oversee proposal development activities, including positioning, strategy development, customer negotiations, contract review, and pricing/costing.
- Create and ensure a strong culture of safety, quality, spirit of hospitality!
- Leverage Sodexo’s commitment to diversity and inclusion to extend Sodexo’s reach in area communities.
Our ideal candidate meets the following criteria:
- Strong experience managing and directing other leaders in a high-volume portfolio of multiple high-volume clients throughout a large geographic region. Highly prefer contracted services B&I industry experience.
- Must have prior experience working with union accounts.
- Have a strong P&L background.
- An experienced people leader who is mission-focused, growth oriented, committed to operational excellence, and skilled in leading teams in a performance-driven culture in multiple sites throughout a large geographic region.
- A leader with unwavering ethics, integrity, and related personal attributes who will inspire team members to develop to their fullest potential.
- A skilled Change Champion who prepares the area’s culture to adapt to and embrace ongoing, fundamental changes that will enable the business to grow and prosper.
- Has demonstrated success achieving segment goals by providing the leadership and oversight necessary to ensure that the business has the proper solutions, products, metrics, and talent in place to effectively grow the organization and meet/exceed defined revenue, profitability targets, and other KPIs.
- Skilled in balancing retention efforts at current clients with new business development opportunities and reallocating resources across the territory as needed to ensure operational excellence within all accounts.
- Demonstrated ability to interpret, analyze, and explain financial information. This includes understanding financial data and accurately interpreting financial statements and reports, and identifying the key factors affecting the financial performance of Corporate Services
- A skilled communicator (written and verbal) who is poised when communicating difficult/challenging/unpopular messages to a variety of audiences.
- A technically savvy, decisive individual who possesses a “big picture perspective” and enforces accountability across the Region.
