Mgr Business Development CoMfg

Job Location: Hershey, PA


The Business Development Manager is responsible for identifying, structuring, and managing strategic co-manufacturing and product co-development partnerships that accelerate speed-to-market for high-quality, consumer-centric products. This role balances commercial agility with disciplined governance, ensuring intellectual property protection, operational scalability, and long-term enterprise value. This role enables enterprise-scale innovation by creating disciplined, high-trust external partnerships that deliver speed, quality, and protected differentiation. The Business Development Manager ensures that collaborative innovation strengthens the company’s intellectual property and long-term competitive position.

Core Responsibilities

• Strategic Partnership Development
• Identify and evaluate co-manufacturing and co-development partners aligned with enterprise quality, capacity, innovation, and compliance standards
• Lead partner onboarding, due diligence, and governance model design
• Establish long-term, scalable partnership frameworks that support portfolio growth and innovation pipelines

Commercial & Product Co-Development Leadership

• Lead commercial structuring and execution of product co-development initiatives from concept through commercialization
• Drive alignment between partner capabilities and internal product, brand, and consumer strategies
• Enable accelerated development timelines while maintaining enterprise quality, regulatory, and operational standards
• Support portfolio prioritization decisions related to external development and manufacturing capacity

Intellectual Property & Contractual Governance

• Maintain working expertise in intellectual property principles, including background IP, foreground IP, joint IP, trade secrets, and licensing
• Partner closely with Legal to negotiate and operationalize NDAs, development agreements, supply agreements, and IP ownership provisions
• Ensure consistent application of enterprise IP protection standards across all partnerships
• Identify, assess, and mitigate IP, confidentiality, and competitive risks

Cross-Functional & Stakeholder Leadership

• Serve as a central liaison across Legal, R&D, Operations, Quality, Procurement, and Finance
• Translate legal, technical, and operational constraints into commercially viable partnership structures
• Establish performance metrics, governance cadences, and escalation mechanisms for external partners

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, Supply Chain, or related discipline

• 7–10+ years of experience in business development, strategic partnerships, or commercial leadership within manufacturing-intensive industries (CPG, food & beverage, personal care, pharmaceuticals, or adjacent sectors)

• Demonstrated experience managing co-manufacturing or contract manufacturing relationships at enterprise scale

• Proven track record of accelerating product commercialization through external partners

Knowledge, Skills & Capabilities

• Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, product development lifecycles, and quality systems

• Working proficiency in intellectual property concepts and IP-driven contract structures

• Strong negotiation and stakeholder management skills across executive, legal, and technical audiences

• Ability to operate effectively in highly matrixed, regulated, and governance-driven environments

• Analytical, structured, and outcome-oriented decision-making approach

Key Performance Indicators

• Time-to-market reduction for externally developed products

• Compliance with enterprise IP protection and governance standards

• Partner performance, continuity, and scalability

• Value creation through co-development initiatives

The Hershey Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The policy of The Hershey Company is to extend opportunities to qualified applicants and employees on an equal basis regardless of an individual's race, color, gender, age, national origin, religion, citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other categories protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.


The Hershey Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer - Minority/Female/Disabled/Protected Veterans.

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