Strategic Planning & Transformation Manager

Ko wai mātou – About us   

Kia ora. We’re Foodies. You know Gilmours, New World, PAK’nSAVE, and Four Square, right? That’s us!

With more than 320 stores and over 27,000 Foodies across Te Ika-a-Māui, Foodstuffs North Island is a co-operative proudly owned by our Members. Our purpose is simple – making sure New Zealanders get more out of life, and we’re driven by our aspiration to be one of New Zealand’s most customer-driven and productive retailers.

Te Tūranga – About the role

This is a high-impact opportunity within our Merchandise function, helping shape what we prioritise, how we deliver and transform, and where we unlock the greatest value.

As our Strategic Planning & Transformation Manager, you’ll turn Merchandise strategy into a clear, prioritised and executable portfolio, while leading key transformation priorities through to measurable and sustained outcomes. You’ll own our rolling 8-quarter planning approach and create clarity around value, capacity, sequencing and the trade-offs needed to support confident leadership decisions.

You’ll play a pivotal role in ensuring our priorities translate into action, bringing together strategy, delivery, technology, process and people to create simpler, smarter ways of working. This includes helping Merchandise realise the potential of AI, automation and emerging technology, identifying where they can materially improve productivity, decision-making and commercial outcomes.

Working across Merchandise and with our enterprise partners, you’ll bring clarity to complex transformation, connect interdependent work and help ensure our investment and effort are focused on the priorities that will create the greatest value.

Key deliverables include:

Strategic planning and portfolio leadership

• Shaping the strategic agenda by translating Merchandise strategy and functional priorities into one integrated, decision-ready portfolio and rolling 8-quarter plan.
• Creating clarity around outcomes, value, dependencies, capacity and sequencing, enabling senior leaders to make evidence-based prioritisation and trade-off decisions.
• Turning agreed priorities into executable roadmaps with clear ownership, resource requirements and measurable outcomes.

Delivery leadership

• Leading selected complex, cross-functional transformation priorities from strategic intent through execution to measurable and sustained outcomes.
• Creating visibility and accountability across Merchandise-owned delivery, surfacing risks, dependencies and decisions early and bringing clear options and recommendations to senior leaders.
• Moving comfortably between the strategic view and delivery detail, resolving ambiguity, unblocking work and maintaining momentum against agreed outcomes.

Transformation, technology and productivity

• Shaping and leading transformation across Merchandise processes, capabilities, operating models and ways of working to create simpler, smarter and more productive ways of operating.
• Accelerating AI-enabled transformation by identifying and prioritising practical opportunities where AI, automation and emerging technology can materially improve productivity, decision-making and commercial outcomes.
• Working with Technology, Product and functional teams to turn opportunities into business value, testing and validating high-value use cases and embedding successful solutions into the way we work.

Enterprise integration and ways of working

• Acting as the key Merchandise integration point with Enterprise Transformation, Technology, Product, Change, Finance and other delivery partners.
• Connecting priorities and dependencies across the enterprise, ensuring Merchandise requirements, outcomes and accountabilities remain clear as work moves into delivery.
• Building capability and accountability across teams, while ensuring functional leaders retain ownership of their outcomes and benefits.

He kōrero mōu – About you

You’ll be an accomplished strategy and transformation leader who can comfortably move between big-picture thinking and hands-on delivery. You know how to navigate complexity, challenge constructively and work with senior leaders to turn strategic ambition into clear priorities, decisions and outcomes.

You’ll bring strong commercial judgement, combined with the ability to understand how technology, AI, automation and new ways of working can unlock meaningful business value. You don’t need to be a technologist, but you’ll be confident translating emerging capabilities into practical opportunities and ensuring transformation remains focused on outcomes rather than technology for technology’s sake.

What will set you up for success:

• Strong strategic planning and delivery experience in a complex organisation, with a track record of turning strategy into prioritised plans and delivering tangible outcomes.
• Strong commercial judgement and value orientation, with the ability to assess benefits, implications and trade-offs and make evidence-based recommendations.
• Technology, product and AI fluency, with the ability to identify and assess opportunities and connect emerging technology, AI and automation to practical business value and productivity.
• Credibility and influence with senior leaders, with the ability to navigate complexity, challenge constructively and work effectively across organisational boundaries.
• A pragmatic, hands-on leadership style, equally comfortable shaping strategy, leading transformation and getting into the detail to solve problems and move delivery forward.

This role will particularly suit someone who gets energy from turning strategy into action, navigating complexity and leading meaningful transformation, and who sees AI and emerging technology as powerful levers to unlock productivity and commercial advantage.

Ngā painga - What we offer   

We’re committed to providing awesome experiences for our people, including offering a range of benefits

• Free carparking - we’ve got over 1,000 carparks including EV plugs
• Southern Cross plans for you and your family
• Onsite café with subsidised meals, mini mart, 5% discount at our retail stores
• Flexible working options, a day off on your birthday, lots of fun on site activities
• Inhouse learning and development programmes and courses, flu vaccinations, and social network groups (we call them Tribes).

Experience awesome. Achieve awesome. Be awesomely you.

We’re proud to have a focus on Diversity & Inclusion here at Foodies and welcome courageous behaviour, encourage togetherness, inspire our people to be their best selves in our Foodies whānau.

We encourage you to apply with all your awesomeness and welcome your diverse background, including any disability, additional health and mental health needs, and/or neurodiversity.

If you require accessibility support to ensure you can fairly access our recruitment process, please reach out to  Recruitment.Foodstuffs@foodstuffs.co.nz.  Accessibility support could include interview location, sign language interpreter, assistive technology.