Manager, Pricing--Commercial Excellence (OPEN TO ALL U.S. LOCATIONS)

Overview

This role supports Commercial Excellence within the organization’s Private Equity Performance Improvement services (PEPI). The position leads revenue and margin improvement engagements for clients’ portfolio companies.

Open to all U.S. locations.

Responsibilities

• Advise clients on Revenue & Margin Management, including:
  • Margin transparency
  • Product portfolio optimization
  • SKU rationalization
  • New product development
  • Pricing strategy and margin recovery
• Lead teams delivering data-driven business insights and ongoing Revenue & Margin Management programs.
• Own and manage high-quality end-to-end project execution, including roadmap design, team/plan management, and development and presentation of final deliverables.
• Contribute to development of intellectual property and support internal team building.
• Communicate effectively with C-level management and internal stakeholders.
• Conceive, structure, and execute analytical plans to uncover drivers of performance and develop actionable solutions.

Margin Transparency

• Evaluate current cost allocation processes and mechanisms (cost categories allocated, basis for allocation, etc.).
• Assess profitability by market, customer, product category, SKU, etc.
• Identify and quantify additional complexity-driven costs-to-serve (e.g., product customization, extra customer service, samples, expedited freight, special customer terms).
• Identify improvements for future product costing analyses (e.g., allocations for indirect costs, costs-to-serve) and implementation.
• Assess and implement cost-to-serve premiums and targeted price adjustments, quantifying impact on margin and profitability.

Product Portfolio Optimization

• Assess competitive landscape and customer trends.
• Evaluate product portfolio performance (financial measures, product life-cycle stage, competitive differentiation).
• Develop product-category-specific sales and investment strategies and implementation plans.

SKU Rationalization

• Using a Cost-to-Serve framework, identify low or negative net margin SKUs and evaluate opportunities to eliminate identified SKUs.
• Evaluate potential for complexity reduction (including SKU rationalization).
• Implement SKU rationalization and complexity reduction initiatives.

Price Optimization

• Assess pricing levers and quantify profitability opportunities, including:
  • Value price setting
  • Transactional price management (e.g., leakage, discounts, and escalators)
  • Pass-through (inflation, material costs)
• Assess pricing discipline across products, markets, and customers.
• Evaluate and improve pricing process (e.g., price setting, target profitability, approval process for discounts).
• Assess and implement broad-based and selective price increases based on market factors, competitive situations, existing contracts, etc.
• Determine whether margin improvements are driven by volume increases, price increases, or mix.

Margin Recovery

• Review costs-to-serve market value and potential for pass-through.
• Identify and implement recovery opportunities for identified complexity drivers.
• Assess current pricing/quoting processes for recovering costs-to-serve and implement improvements.

Core Professional Skills

• Project management: Own high-quality delivery of individual projects, including roadmap design, team/plan management, and deliverable presentation.
• Project fulfillment: Combine creative problem-solving with analytical rigor to drive actionable insights (e.g., margin transparency, pricing analysis, reporting frameworks/dashboards; B2B/B2C customer segmentation and statistical modeling).
• Data manipulation & analysis: Analyze client and market data using tools that may include MS Excel, SQL Server, BI tools (Alteryx or Tableau), and statistical programs (SPSS or R).
• People & team leadership: Motivate, develop, and challenge project team members; mentor junior staff.
• Client relations: Manage day-to-day client relationships and collaborate on requirements, hypotheses, data gathering, alternative development, and recommendations.

Requirements

• Industry experience in B2B and business services; experience working with PE and/or PE relationships is a plus.
• Strong financial acumen, including understanding of P&L and cost drivers.
• 7-10 years of experience focused on Revenue & Margin, including experience developing and implementing pricing processes and methodology.
• Experience with pricing aspects including value-based, transactional, discount leakage, and pass-through, plus best practices in review and approval processes and waterfall analysis.
• Experience with pricing tools such as Vendavo.
• Analytical mindset with exposure to tools/technologies including:
  • Relational database (SQL)
  • BI (Alteryx, Tableau)
  • Statistical (SPSS, R)
  • Web analytics (SiteCatalyst, Google Analytics)
• Strong quantitative mindset and excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Exceptional project management and presentation skills.
• Outstanding people development and management skills, including ability to lead junior team members and support their career growth.
• Demonstrated intellectual and task leadership on complex projects.
• Ability to work independently in an unstructured environment, think quickly, and respond with confidence and creativity.
• Consulting experience preferred (not required).
• MBA from a top-tier university preferred (not required).

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary range: $125,000--$190,000 annually, dependent on education, experience, skills, and geography.
• Discretionary bonus program: Based on a number of factors, including individual and firm performance. Ask the recruiter for details.

Full-time Positions and Part-time Positions Over 30 hours

• Healthcare plans, flexible spending and savings accounts, life, AD&D, and disability coverages (rates determined from time to time).
• 401(k) retirement plan, with a discretionary contribution to the 401(k) if eligibility requirements are met.
• Paid time off, including vacation, personal days, seventy-two (72) hours of sick time (prorated for part time employees), ten federal holidays, one floating holiday, and parental leave.
• Vacation and personal day availability varies based on tenure and role type.

Part-time Positions Under 30 hours

• 401(k) retirement plan.
• Discretionary 401(k) contribution if eligibility requirements are met.

Location

• Open to all U.S. locations