overview
G-Works is General Mills’ corporate venture studio, launching and incubating new businesses that deliver great value to consumers.
G-Works’ co-founders are entrepreneurs who bring passion, grit, agility, and innovation to General Mills and discover new business opportunities with their three-person start-up teams. They develop deep consumer empathy through research, learn through experimentation, and ultimately leverage General Mills’ scale to accelerate business growth.
These co-founders will identify, create, validate and operate new businesses that solve critical consumer problems in the food sector.
We are seeking a strategic, passionate and entrepreneurial leader to join the existing G-Works team as a Commercial Co-Founder. Successful co-founders are those who are willing to be proactive, learn new skills, and wear multiple hats.
The ideal candidate will have held commercial leadership roles (brand management, general management, etc.) at large CPGs and business leadership roles (founder, CEO, general manager) at startups. I am a person who has many things to do.
The co-founder team will partner to:
- Build high-functioning, high-performing teams that are motivated by a common purpose and mobilized to achieve ambitious goals.
- Leverage agile experimentation to learn faster at scale
- Build and validate compelling business models, and continually refine and strengthen key assumptions.
- Define and pitch your business vision, generate excitement, and gain buy-in from internal investors and, when the time is right, stakeholders such as retailers and key customers.
- Takes full responsibility for all aspects of the business
As a commercial co-founder, you can lead by:
- Lead positioning and branding development
- Create and manage P&L and team budgets
- Build a go-to-market strategy
- Identify white spaces for innovation in large markets that have synergies with General Mills
minimum qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree required
- 5+ years of professional experience and 2+ years of experience in a startup.
- Proven track record of end-to-end execution, preferably culminating in one or more successful product/business launches or commercializations.
- Experience building financial models and managing profit and loss
- accustomed to ambiguity and uncertainty
- Experience and passion for working directly with consumers/customers and running experiments that validate or invalidate important assumptions.
- Excellent communication and influencing skills
- Excellent organizational, creative and time management skills.
- Strong project management skills, including a successful track record of leading cross-functional teams to execute complex initiatives.
- Passion for team building and mobilizing teams towards ambitious goals
- Persistence: Be resourceful, decisive, overcome obstacles, and act with urgency.
- Strong collaboration skills. We have an “us before us” mindset and build trust through honest, respectful and productive conversations.
- Demonstrated agility and resilience in bouncing back from setbacks
- Problem Solving/Analytical Skills: Ability to synthesize feedback from various stakeholders and decide on a path forward.
- Familiar with software packages (Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint)
- Experience working in a large corporate environment
- Ability to work standard business hours (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time) most days.
Desired qualifications
- Previous experience in commercial leadership roles (brand management, general management, etc.) at large CPGs and business-facing leadership roles (founder, CEO, general manager) at startups. be
- Food and beverage experience at major daily necessities manufacturers and emerging companies
- Startup funding experience
- Dip or luxury category experience preferred
Company Profile
We exist to create food that is loved by the world. But we do more than that. We’re a place where we prioritize being a force for good, where we expand our learning, explore new perspectives, and reimagine new possibilities every day. We’re looking for people who want to be their best – bold thinkers with big hearts who challenge and grow together. Because being the undisputed leader in food means being surrounded by people hungry for:
