Commercial Partnerships Project Manager

Contract type: Permanent

Location: Hatfield (Hybrid working - 3 days in the office)

Working hours per week: 40 hours

Level: Senior Associate

Reports to: Partnerships Lead

Application Closing Date: Sunday 22nd November

About us

Our mission is to deliver joy in every shop, through unbeatable choice, unrivalled service, and reassuringly good value. We’re also on a mission to empower our business with smart technology; we've recently launched our AI Academy, providing a tailored AI learning journey for every colleague.

We’re Ocado Retail, a market-leading joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S, and the world’s largest dedicated online supermarket, ocado.com. Not only is Ocado the only place to shop a full range of M&S food online, but it’s also the home to the widest online supermarket range in the UK and a champion of small, independent brands. We’re also the brains behind Zoom by Ocado, our same-day grocery delivery service.

About the team and the role

Strategic Partnerships sits in the broader Partnerships & Commercial Strategy team, within the Commercial Development function. The purpose of Strategic Partnerships is to govern high-value commercial alliances with third parties that bring something new and different to Ocado Retail’s offering, helping us deliver unbeatable choice to customers. The partnerships we support range from M&S to our small challenger brands community (Roots), Buy Women Built, Future of Food and many others.

The team's mandate spans onboarding and hyper-caring new partnerships, embedding more established strategic partnerships into the broader buying function, and running our unique communities on an ongoing basis. We are the central point of contact for M&S where we act as the bridge between teams, helping set joint objectives and surfacing opportunities for growth/cost savings. We also govern certain processes (e.g. M&S range maintenance on Ocado) and report against progress and performance.

The role of the Commercial Partnerships Project Manager is to own the end-to-end delivery of distinct projects within Strategic Partnerships, across the full suite of partnerships. Examples include leading the joint sourcing programme within M&S to unlock COGS efficiencies, running commercial reviews of existing partnerships to identify improvements, and establishing new strategic partnerships that further reinforce our choice proposition.

What you’ll do

• Project delivery: scoping the opportunity, defining joint objectives, delivering tasks, and reviewing success

• Governance and facilitation: assembling cross-functional project teams across Ocado and the partner, leading regular meetings with project teams, running steercos with senior leadership, creating standardised documentation and tracking against progress

• Commercial analysis: using various data sources to provide recommendations, support negotiations and identify opportunities within partnerships

• Customer activation: working with our marketing and e-commerce functions to create strong channel execution plans for our partners

• Communication and training: creating and evolving playbooks and toolkits to coordinate, support and educate other teams and ensure consistency of approach

Who you are

What you bring (essential):

• Experience running multi-stakeholder projects end to end, from scoping and planning through to delivery and review

• A background in retail, FMCG, food supply chain, or a buying, sourcing or commercial function

• Strong Excel/Google Sheets skills and experience turning large or messy data sets into clear recommendations

• A working knowledge of AI tools (e.g., Gemini, Claude, Copilot) and experience in using them to speed up analysis, documentation, and repeatable processes

• Clear written and verbal communication, including presenting to executives

Nice to have (desirable)

• Experience in commercial negotiations or tendering

• Familiarity with retail data tools

• Experience building playbooks, toolkits or repeatable processes

• Experience in partnerships, joint ventures or alliance management

How you work:

• Collaborative: comfortable building relationships across a broad range of stakeholders and levels of seniority, including senior contacts at M&S and other partners, and internal buying, customer, finance and legal teams, so that joint projects get delivered.

• Structured: takes a structured approach to new projects and prioritises across a breadth of tasks, so that several projects of different sizes can run in parallel across different partnerships.

• Analytical: naturally data-led and curious, comfortable pulling disparate data into a clear conclusion, so that recommendations are evidence-based and can support negotiations and show where a partnership is under- or over-delivering.

• Commercial: has working knowledge of commercial negotiations and what drives commercial performance, so that projects deliver tangible outcomes such as COGS savings.

• Driven: results-oriented, with a track record of planning, scoping and executing complex, time-critical projects, so that projects are delivered on time and to the agreed outcome.

What’s in it for you

By joining Ocado Retail, you’ll have the chance to experience life at the world’s largest online retailer, work with an amazing bunch of people who challenge what’s possible each day, and grow your skills and career in online retail. You'll also be part of our AI Academy, a dedicated learning journey designed to empower every colleague with the smart technology skills of the future.

If that’s not enough to tempt you, you’ll also get access to loads of great benefits to sweeten the deal. Here’s a taste of what we offer:

Health & Wellbeing: Private medical insurance with option to add your family, Digital GP appointments, market-leading family policies, mental health support, discounted gym memberships, dental insurance, and more.

Spend & Save: Annual bonus scheme split between personal and business objectives, recognition with reward platform, up to 7% matched pension contributions, 15% Ocado discount, 20% M&S discount, free breakfast every day in the office, electric vehicle leasing scheme, and free shuttle bus from Hatfield station to the office.

Never miss the moments that matter: Hybrid working, 26 days holiday plus 8 flexible bank holidays, options to buy extra holiday, 2 weeks work from anywhere, and lifestyle break opportunities.

Our Hiring Process

Lucky for us, we receive a high volume of applications and genuinely appreciate the time and effort invested by every candidate. To ensure a fair and thorough process, every application is reviewed by a member of our team. If your skills and experience are a strong match, a Talent Partner will contact you to discuss the role and guide you through the next steps of our hiring process.

Your Application and AI

In the spirit of innovation, we welcome you to use AI tools in your application, just as we use them in our own business at Ocado Retail. However, as you leverage this technology, please don't lose sight of the most important element: your unique self. Your experiences, passions, and personality are what truly set you apart. Ensure that your application still authentically conveys who you are and why you're a great fit for us.

Everyone’s welcome

We’re an equal opportunities employer, which means that we make sure all potential colleagues are treated fairly and equally. We want to ensure everyone has a fair chance to apply; if you need this job description in an alternative format (e.g., larger print, different document type, etc.), please reach out to us at careers@ocadoretail.com and we'll be happy to assist you, and if you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know on the application form.