Senior Manager, Cultural Relevance

BUILT ON FLAVOR.  FUELED BY PEOPLE. What’s it like to work at Kinder’s? Well, there’s a lot of snacking and geeking out over what we all cooked over the weekend. Beyond that, there’s also plenty of hard work. Because we don’t just like flavor, we’re obsessed with it.      With over 100 products sold nationwide, we’re now a top-five brand in multiple flavor categories at Costco, Walmart, Whole Foods, and more. We’re not your typical CPG company. Privately held and founder-led, we like to think of ourselves as a pirate ship in a sea of cruise ships . Our crew is adventurous and fearless. We chart our own course and chase big ideas to make food unforgettable.   As we expand globally and approach $1 billion in revenue, we need more smart-and-scrappy, flavor-obsessed people to come aboard. If you’re looking for a place where you can see the real impact of your work... this is it!  Every day, you’ll be part of a journey to add flavor to millions of meals and lives.  Kinder’s is seeking a Sr. Manager, Cultural Relevance to be part of a passionate team of dedicated and hard-working people focused on changing people’s expectations of what’s possible when it comes to food. Reporting into Consumer Insights as part of the new Strategic Growth & Capabilities pillar, this first-of-its-kind role at Kinder’s will build and lead our cultural relevance capability—helping us stay deeply connected to people and culture and translating that understanding into opportunities across marketing, brand strategy, product development, and growth. The ideal candidate combines deep cultural curiosity and consumer empathy with strategic thinking, business acumen, and a bias toward action. They can spot what is gaining momentum, understand why it matters, and inspire teams to turn that understanding into ideas that are relevant, distinctive, and uniquely Kinder’s. How You'll Have an Impact at Kinder’s:  At Kinder’s, we believe great brands earn their place in people’s lives by being genuinely useful, inspiring, and relevant. You will help ensure that what we put into the world adds value to the people we serve by developing a deeper understanding of their lives and what matters to them—how they think, feel, connect, celebrate, experiment, struggle, scroll, search, and eat. Going beyond a traditional insights role, you’ll keep a pulse on both what’s happening now and what’s coming next, with a particular focus on the real-time signals emerging through social and digital behavior. You’ll partner closely with Marketing, Product Development, Brand Strategy, and Consumer Insights to turn those signals into actionable strategies, products, and activations that elevate how Kinder’s shows up in culture and in consumers’ everyday lives. Key Responsibilities: Build Cultural Relevance as a Capability Build an always-on approach to identifying and interpreting trends, cultural moments, emerging behaviors, and broader shifts across food and flavor, media and entertainment, creators and communities, technology, retail, lifestyle, and other spaces shaping consumers. Build an ecosystem of tools and methods that expand Kinder’s ability to sense and understand culture; create simple frameworks that help teams evaluate what matters, why it matters, how long it might matter, and whether—and how—Kinder’s should act. Establish a regular cadence of cultural intelligence—from timely trend and activation opportunities to deeper perspectives on emerging consumer and cultural shifts. Facilitate briefings, workshops, and working sessions that turn cultural and consumer intelligence into ideas, choices, and action. Build cultural curiosity and capability across the organization, becoming a trusted thought partner and bringing an informed external perspective into key business conversations. Anticipate, Interpret & Translate Cultural Signals Track culture across multiple horizons—from fast-moving conversations and behaviors to longer-term shifts in consumer values, needs, tastes, and expectations. Integrate social listening, search and behavioral signals, consumer research, category intelligence, secondary research, and emerging AI-enabled tools to develop a holistic and timely view of consumers and culture. Assess what is gaining momentum and distinguish what is simply interesting from what presents a meaningful opportunity for Kinder’s. Connect individual signals and trends to deeper consumer motivations and behaviors to develop points of view on where culture is headed and what it could mean for our business. Mobilize Cultural Relevance Into Action Translate cultural intelligence into actionable opportunities across marketing activation, brand strategy, innovation and product development Partner closely with Brand Strategy, Marketing, Product Development, Consumer Insights, and other teams to determine where Kinder’s has a credible and distinctive role to play in emerging trends and cultural moments. Develop rapid-turn points of view that help teams understand what’s happening, why consumers care, whether Kinder’s should participate, and how we could add value while the opportunity is still relevant. Connect emerging cultural behaviors to Kinder’s brands, products, flavors, occasions, and distinctive assets to inspire ideas that are both culturally relevant and uniquely Kinder’s. What You Bring to the Table Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Marketing, Communications, or a related discipline; equivalent relevant experience considered. 7–10 years of experience across cultural intelligence, consumer insights, trend sensing, brand strategy, social intelligence, innovation, or related disciplines; experience in consumer products, food & beverage, retail, lifestyle, media, or consulting preferred. Deep cultural curiosity, strong consumer and commercial judgment, and a bias toward action, with the ability to influence and collaborate across Marketing, Brand Strategy, Produc