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About the Company

With a passion specialty for great coffee, Pilot Coffee Roasters was built around its core values of sourcing ethical, Direct Trade coffee and building transparency in the process from farm to cup.

Pilot is a full-service roastery, wholesaler and cafe operator with multiple locations across the Greater Toronto Area. It operates as a specialty café and roastery, supplying coffee, equipment, training, technical support, and consulting services for new café owners across Canada.

Scope of Position

The Head of Brand Creative reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer and is the strategic role responsible for setting and executing against the Brand’s vision for what Pilot looks, feels and sounds like in its communications, campaigns, brand initiatives and media. An exceptional storyteller and true brand marketer, you will shape and elevate Pilot’s overall brand identity in line with the company’s culture, values and legacy.

The successful candidate will be responsible for leading Pilot’s in-house creative and marketing team, which currently includes two direct reports, and lead the conceptual vision and art direction for campaigns, brand initiatives and marketing programs.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

● Brand Management:

• Provide answers to the questions: What categories and products should we be in? How do we position and price? Where and how do we sell our products?
• Serve as a passionate steward and advocate for the brand and its values.
• Own the product segmentation strategy including consumer insights, category trends, and market dynamics.
• Manage the positioning of the brand so that it uniformly succeeds across various touch points including but not limited to: advertising, social, digital, website, events, point of sale, packaging, sales decks, internal comms, etc.
• Lead the creative and marketing team for the P&L for each product family, as well as manage all briefed work while directing the creative teams and alignment.
• Work shoulder to shoulder, to support all sales channels.

● Marketing Strategy:

• Serve as the architect of the marketing strategy and set the goals for the brand.
• Manage relationships with external agencies.
• Set and manage the marketing budget.

● Shopper Marketing:

• Responsible for our shopper marketing facets, including strategy, calendar, agency management, POS, coupons, demo/store events, etc.

● Communications:

• Lead communications internally in line with Pilot’s culture and values.
• Lead external public relations and manage events.

● Creative Direction:

• Collaborate with the creative team to provide analysis-based strategic insights that support the sales channels (where we should be, when we should be there, what we should say). Provide direction that will allow the creative team to develop the right qualitative language, images and design for effective marketing.
• Develop Creative Briefs, Strategy and drive Execution based on collaboration with cross-functional partners (Brand and Product Marketing, Marketing Activation, Omnichannel).
• Responsible for managing the team’s overall operating model, including the setting and enforcing of brand guidelines.
• Inspire the team to drive methods, creative processes and thinking (brand storytelling, and differentiation).

● Service Internal Customers:

• Provide support to internal customers including Operations, treating them as customers with an understanding that their success is crucial to overall brand success.

● Culture Influencer:

• Help define the future look and feel of Pilot’s brand, in line with our culture, values and legacy.
• Be an optimistic change agent that helps energize and lead the rest of the organization toward the fulfillment of our mission.

● Maintain an understanding of and commitment to Pilot’s mission and values.
● All other reasonable duties assigned by the company.

Preferred Experience and Education

• 10+ years of experience in multi-channel brand marketing within the CPG/Food & Beverage Industry.
• 5+ years of team management or cross-functional team management in a fast-paced and dynamic organization.
• Solid understanding of project management methodologies.
• Advanced experience with digital analytics and reporting technology.
• Proven ability to identify and resolve issues, manage risk, develop detailed project plans, specifications, and reports.
• Skilled at working effectively with cross functional teams in a matrix organization.
• Proven track record of lifting brand awareness, penetrating new markets, and driving growth.
• Experience in crafting compelling storytelling through design – copywriting skills considered an asset.
• Proven work experience in digital design; CMS platforms (eg; Shopify or BigCommerce), Automated Marketing software, UX/UI, loyalty apps, and bringing a brand to life consistently across all digital touch-points
• Strong Art Direction and image retouching skills.
• Deep understanding of how all social media channels perform, and how to build out branded campaigns within these platforms.
• Retail and spatial design experience are considered an asset.
• Experience using Google App Suite and iOS system are considered an asset.

Competency Profile

• Business Awareness – Stays informed of what’s happening across the company and builds meaningful relationships with relevant stakeholders in order to effectively carry out their job duties.
• Strategic Leadership – Ability to analyze the company’s competitive position by considering the market, existing and potential customers, and the company’s strengths and weaknesses; create and achieve a desired future state through influence on company values, personal and team goals, reinforcements and systems.
• Technical & Professional Knowledge – Possesses a strong knowledge of the company’s product offerings, and systems and processes to carry out responsibilities effectively; stays on top of trends in area of expertise.
• Problem Analysis – Able to identify a problem, seek information to solve the problem, and gather relevant stakeholders to ensure an effective solution is implemented.
• Planning & Organizing – Effectively handles multiple demands and competing priorities.
• Attention to Detail – Thoroughness in accomplishing a task through concern for all areas involved, no matter how small.
• Teamwork & Collaboration – Cooperates with other team members to achieve personal, team, and company goals.
• Communication Skills – Expresses oneself in a clear and compelling way when using all mediums of communication, such as in conversation, presentations, documents, digital copy, and email.
• Flexible & Adaptable to Change – Open to different and new ways of doing things; willingness to modify one’s preferred way of doing things; maintain effectiveness in varying/new environments with different tasks, responsibilities and people.

Remuneration / Benefits

• Highly competitive compensation package tailored to the successful candidate.

Working Conditions

• Work is typically performed in an office or home office environment with some exposure to a warehouse environment where motorized equipment is operated. For clarity, this is a hybrid role, between the 50 Wagstaff office and home office.
• Prolonged periods of sitting are required.

Diversity, Inclusion

Pilot Coffee Roasters is committed to building and fostering an environment where everyone feels included, valued and heard. We aim to provide a barrier free experience for those looking to join our team and we welcome and encourage applications from people with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, racialized people, people from gender and sexually diverse communities and / or people with intersectional identities. Accommodations are available on request for people taking part in aspects of the recruitment process. People requiring accommodation(s) during the recruitment process, can notify their recruiter directly.

The company reserves the right to alter job descriptions with the changing needs of the business.

If interested, please contact:

Jonathan Frank
StoneWood Group
[email protected]

Sal Rocco
StoneWood Group
[email protected]