Commercial Events and Trade Planning Manager

Summary

We’re reshaping our Food business to broaden its appeal, protecting the magic our customers love while modernising everything else. That means outstanding quality, high sourcing standards, and market-leading innovation remain at our core, while we transform our supply chains, improve our stores, and deliver better value.

We’re looking for motivated people ready to bring their whole self to work and thrive in a fast-paced, ambitious team. After all, this isn’t just food… this is M&S Food.

All the details

Are you a strategic, commercially minded leader who thrives on shaping long‑term direction and driving cross‑functional delivery? We’re looking for a Commercial Events and Trade Planning Manager to own and evolve the strategic roadmap that defines how we plan, prioritise, and deliver trade‑driving activity across Foods.

In this pivotal role, you’ll set the 3–5 year vision for Trade Planning, Events, Promotions, and our Online Christmas Food to Order proposition—ensuring every decision is grounded in commercial insight and contributes to sustainable growth. You’ll work at the heart of the business, collaborating with Online, Commercial, Marketing, Finance, Technical and Retail teams to influence decisions and orchestrate seamless execution.

What You’ll Do

• Own and evolve the 3–5 year strategic roadmap across Trade Planning, Events, Promotions, and Online Christmas Food to Order
• Translate long‑term strategy into clear, prioritised, and executable cross‑functional programmes
• Maintain strong governance — managing risks, dependencies, trade‑offs, and ensuring appropriate escalation
• Drive improvements to ways of working across teams, enhancing clarity, pace, and effectiveness
• Influence and align key partners across Commercial, Online, Finance, Marketing, Technical, and Retail to enable effective, evidence‑based decisions

Who You Are

• Strong strategic and commercial acumen to define long‑term strategy and ensure commercial growth and return
• Programme leadership and governance capability — turning strategy into programmes and handling risks and dependencies
• Ability to confidently influence and align senior and cross‑functional partners
• High financial and analytical capability to interpret data and inform decision‑making
• Experience in operating model optimisation and continuous improvement to enhance pace and clarity of delivery

What’s in it for You?

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger – delivering quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We’re inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

• 20% colleague discount for you & 1 household member (after probation)
• Competitive holiday allowance & option to buy more
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to performance
• Strong pension & life assurance
• Tailored induction & training from day one
• Perks and savings via M&S Choices portal
• Market-leading family policies (parental, adoption, neonatal leave)
• 24/7 wellbeing support (GP access & mental health services)
• 1 paid volunteer day a year

Everyone is welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process

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