Project Lead, Marketing Operations and Information Services

JM Smucker Company

JM Smucker Company

Marketing & Communications, Operations

Orrville, OH, USA · Akron, OH, USA

Posted on May 11, 2026

Your Opportunity as the Project Lead, Marketing Operations and Information Services

The Project Lead for Marketing Operations & Information Systems plays a critical role in keeping the work of the Marketing Operations (MOPS) team moving forward. This role is responsible for leading medium and large initiatives while also overseeing the day‑to‑day operational flow of work across the team.

This person acts as the connective tissue across workstreams—making sure priorities are clear, progress is visible, issues are surfaced early, and commitments turn into follow‑through. They keep the Senior Manager, Marketing Operations & IS informed of what’s happening across the portfolio, escalate risks and blockers when needed, and help hold the team accountable to forward momentum.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys running the “engine” of a team: coordinating work, anticipating friction, bringing structure to complexity, and helping others do their best work—so leadership can stay focused on strategy and long‑term direction.

The Project Lead reports directly to the Senior Manager, Marketing Operations & IS and partners closely with team members, business stakeholders, and external vendors.

Location: Orrville, OH (Close proximity to Cleveland/Akron)

Work Arrangements: Hybrid - onsite a minimum of 9 days a month primarily during core weeks as determined by the Company; maybe more as business need requires

In this role you will:

Manage MOPs Program

  • Help manage the full body of work across Marketing Operations & IS, not just individual projects

  • Maintain visibility into what’s happening across initiatives, workstreams, and priorities

  • Identify cross‑project dependencies, risks, and capacity constraints and surface them early

  • Keep the Senior Manager informed of progress, risks, and tradeoffs; escalate issues when decisions or intervention are needed

  • Help create clarity when priorities compete and work becomes complex

  • Reinforce accountability for commitments, timelines, and next steps across the team

Lead medium and large projects

  • Own end‑to‑end delivery of assigned projects, from planning through execution and close‑out

  • Define scope, milestones, timelines, roles, and dependencies in partnership with stakeholders

  • Manage project execution across people, process, and technology, including managing budget and costs

  • Track and actively manage risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies (RAID)

  • Ensure projects deliver agreed‑upon outcomes on time and within scope and budget, following change control where appropriate

  • Facilitate productive project meetings and decision‑making forums

  • Work effectively with external vendors and partners when needed

Communicate, align, and escalate

  • Translate both complex technical and business-focused project details into clear, actionable updates for both leadership and delivery teams

  • Set and manage expectations with stakeholders across Marketing, IS, and partner teams

  • Appropriately engage cross-functional leadership

  • Identify when work is at risk and escalate appropriately—before issues become failures

  • Support decision‑making by clearly framing options, tradeoffs, and recommendations

Enable strong execution and continuous improvement

  • Model high standards of execution, clarity, and follow‑through

  • Coach and mentor team members

  • Encourage consistent use of agreed‑upon project management and delivery practices (includes waterfall, agile and hybrid)

  • Capture learnings from projects and help apply them to future work

  • Support change management, communications, or training activities as needed to ensure successful adoption

  • Look for opportunities to improve how the team plans, tracks, and executes work over time

What we are looking for:

Minimum Requirements:

  • 5+ years of experience leading or coordinating complex projects, ideally in technology‑enabled or marketing‑adjacent environments

  • Experience managing medium to large initiatives with multiple stakeholders and dependencies

  • Comfort working across both business and technical teams

  • Experience partnering with vendors or external delivery teams

  • Strong organizational skills and the ability to keep multiple workstreams moving at once

  • Clear, confident communicator—able to tailor messages up, down, and across the organization

  • Practical problem solver who can navigate ambiguity and make progress without perfect information

  • Ability to influence and work through others and help teams stay aligned and accountable

  • Solid understanding of project management fundamentals and delivery disciplines (Waterfall, Agile, or hybrid)

  • Comfortable using structure and process as tools—not bureaucracy

  • Proactive, self‑directed, and comfortable taking ownership

  • Calm and steady under pressure; able to spot risk early and act on it

  • Curious about the business and motivated to understand how work connects to outcomes

  • Collaborative, respectful, and inclusive in how you work with others

  • Willing to challenge when needed—and open to being challenged in return

  • Looks for the good in others and listens with full attention

  • Brings a sense of humor and a healthy work-life balance

Additional skills and experience that we think would make someone successful in this role (not required):

  • Experience supporting Marketing, Commercial, or Digital teams

  • Familiarity with enterprise platforms, integrations, or data‑enabled initiatives

  • Exposure to change management, training, or enablement work

  • Consumer Packaged Goods experience

The Right Place for You

We are bold, kind, strive to do the right thing, we play to win, and we believe in a strong community that thrives together. Our culture is rooted in our Basic Beliefs, and we believe in supporting every employee by meeting their physical, emotional, and financial needs.

Stay connected with us on LinkedIn®

We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, age, national origin, disability status or protected veteran status.