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Director, Margin and Profitability

Houston, Texas
Sysco
JOB SUMMARY
The Director, Margin & Profitability will serve as a key leader within the USFS Finance Forecasting Center of Excellence (COE). This role is responsible for advancing Sysco’s margin forecasting capabilities, improving forecast accuracy, standardizing margin methodologies, and delivering actionable financial insights that enable profitable growth. The role combines financial forecasting, profitability analytics, business partnership, and strategic planning to improve decision-making across Finance, Sales, Revenue Management, Merchandising, and Executive Leadership. The successful candidate will help build scalable margin forecasting models, establish common performance drivers, improve forecast credibility, and help transform forecasting from a reporting exercise into a proactive decision-support capability.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Lead Enterprise Margin Forecasting
    Own enterprise GP$, GP/case, and profitability forecasting methodologies.
    Assist in the creation and maintenance of driver-based margin forecasting across customer segments and channels.
    Establish standardized forecasting assumptions and governance processes.
    Improve forecast accuracy, bias measurement, and forecast stability.
    Create a repeatable forecasting framework that supports weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual planning processes.
  • Build Driver-Based Forecasting Models
    Design and evolve models connecting volume, price, mix, cost, inflation, and customer economics to gross profit performance.
    Partner with Economic Strategy to integrate macroeconomic indicators, commodity trends, inflation, consumer spending, and industry signals into profitability forecasts.
    Develop scenario-planning capabilities that support executive decision-making under changing market conditions.
    Establish forecasting methodologies that are transparent, explainable, and scalable.
  • Own Margin Analytics and Business Insights
    Develop standardized profitability bridges and variance explanations.
    Provide actionable insights on drivers of margin expansion and erosion.
    Identify opportunities and risks early enough for business leaders to act.
    Translate forecast outcomes into business recommendations rather than simply reporting results.
    Support business reviews and strategic planning processes with insight-driven narratives.
  • Drive One Forecasting Engine
    Serve as a key architect of the Forecasting COE operating model.
    Eliminate competing or shadow forecasts across the organization.
    Standardize forecasting tools, processes, and common data views.
    Establish governance ensuring teams own business drivers while the COE owns forecasting models.
    Promote consistency in forecasting methodologies across all commercial and operating functions.
  • Strategic Business Partnership
    Partner closely with Finance & Sales Leadership (Local & National), Revenue Management, Merchandising, Supply Chain & Operations, Data & Business Intelligence, FP&A, Executive Leadership, and Market Leadership.
    Provide decision-support analytics that improve pricing, mix, promotional effectiveness, contract performance, and profitability outcomes.
  • Critical Focus Areas During First 12 Months
    Forecast Credibility: Establish baseline margin forecasting accuracy metrics; implement forecast bias and forecast stability tracking; improve forecast precision through enhanced driver transparency.
    Driver Transparency: Develop a common margin-driver framework across all customer types; standardize profitability variance categories and reporting.
    Forecasting COE Transformation: Establish the COE as the recognized forecasting authority; retire parallel forecasting efforts across teams.
    Margin Storytelling: Improve the quality of margin reviews, forecast narratives, and executive communication; elevate conversations from variance reporting to action-oriented recommendations.
    Automation & Simplification: Partner with Data & BI to automate recurring forecasting processes; reduce manual effort while increasing forecast frequency, consistency, and transparency.
  • Success Measures
    Forecast Excellence: GP$ forecast accuracy, GP/case forecast accuracy, forecast bias improvement, forecast stability across cycles.
    Business Impact: Margin opportunity identification, margin erosion prevention, improvement in decision cycle times, adoption of forecasting recommendations.
    Operational Excellence: Reduction in manual forecasting effort, standardization of forecasting methodologies, elimination of shadow forecasts, increased automation of recurring processes.
    Leadership: Strong business partner engagement, capability development within Forecasting COE, cross-functional influence and adoption, succession planning and talent development.

QUALIFICATIONS
Education

  • Bachelor’s Degree in Finance or Accounting required
  • MBA and CPA preferred

Minimum Experience

  • Minimum of 7-10 years related experience, including U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and management experience.
  • yrs. experience, including GAAP and management experience, preferred.

Skills

  • Strong leadership skills, including the ability to mentor and develop individuals and teams. Able to engage and lead team discussions and meetings. Understands team dynamics and works well within a team structure. Collaborative management style and a strategic team player. Delegates responsibilities effectively. Recognizes and acknowledges the value others bring to the organization.
  • Exhibits a high level of infallible integrity, ethical standards, and accountability.
  • Must be a working manager, capable of operating in a fast-paced environment, able to handle pressure well, be self-motivated and detail-oriented.
  • Excellent communication (written and verbal), interpersonal and professional interactive skills, as well as strong presentation, negotiation, time management, and organizational skills. Able to communicate financial data to non-finance people.
  • Strong analytical skills, ability to think strategically and influence business decisions using appropriate, fact-based financial information.
  • Well-developed strategic planning, business, and financial management skills (i.e., pricing, forecasting, budget planning, financial analysis, etc.).
  • A mastery of organizational and project management skills, including the ability to plan, prioritize and execute multiple initiatives/deadlines autonomously and shift priorities as necessary. Able to manage large, complex projects. Uses time effectively.
  • Demonstrates excellent subject matter knowledge of and experience with the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), Sarbanes Oxley Act and ability to learn Sysco technology software and programs and/or equivalent products.
  • Ability to work in a disciplined, consistent, timely and objective manner and capable of following established policies, procedures and practices. Complies with local, state and federal regulations.
  • Ability to travel and interact successfully with a geographically diverse team.
  • Proficient use of MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook) – SAP and PeopleSoft experience preferred.
  • Familiarity with PeopleSoft and other ERP systems preferred.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

  • The physical, mental, and environmental conditions in which the work is performed. The demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this job.
  • While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit, stand, walk and use hands and fingers to operate a computer keyboard, mouse, and telephone to talk and hear. The employee is frequently required to sit and reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds.
  • While this position will primarily work in an office environment, this position may require travel to other office locations, staff meetings, company events, training sessions, and client meetings.
  • May be required to utilize personal vehicles for business travel that may result in long periods of sitting. Must maintain a valid driver’s license and provide proof of current automobile insurance coverage as set forth by Sysco.
  • If working remote, you must have required software to ensure timely communications and have a dedicated workspace free of any distractions and participate in customer or conference calls in a business-friendly environment.
  • The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.
  • This position may require evening and weekend work depending on business needs.

This job description indicates in general terms, the type and level of work performed as well as the typical responsibilities of employees in this classification. The duties described are not to be interpreted as being all-inclusive to any specific employee. Management reserves the right to add, modify, change or rescind the work assignments of different positions and to make reasonable accommodations so that qualified employees can perform the essential functions of the job. Nothing in this position description changes the at-will employment relationship existing between the Company and its employees. This job description supersedes prior job descriptions.

Job Overview