Sustainability Program Manager

Working closely with our CEO St Lucia and Procurement Director, the Sustainability Program Manager will play a leading role in designing, implementing and guiding our Global Cocoa Sustainability Program - 'Gentle Farming' to deliver meaningful impact for farmers and our brand whilst ensuring its alignment to Hotel Chocolat's business purpose - to make people and nature happy, through re-inventing chocolate. You will drive collaboration with internal teams (including the Mars Group), key suppliers, and our external stakeholders to leverage their knowledge and expertise, alongside your own, to co-create and align our ongoing approach. Beyond cocoa, this role provides sustainability expertise and oversight across the business, partnering with functional leads to align initiatives with strategy and consolidating company-wide sustainability reporting. You will be able and passionate to lead the strategic thinking on design, as well as hands on work to ensure delivery.,

• Strategy: Ownership of global cocoa sustainability program 'Gentle Farming 'to deliver meaningful impact for farmers and our brand, aligning it to Hotel Chocolat's business purpose to make people and nature happy, through reinventing chocolate. Lead the continuous improvement and design of program ambition, contents and execution in origin,
• Delivery & Governance: Lead and govern implementation of the program initiatives, ensuring they are executed as agreed with external partners, against KPI's and budget.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Drive and collaborate with stakeholders internally and externally to co-create and align our ongoing approach to cocoa sustainability, it's initiatives and communication to maximise impact for farmers and our brand. With key suppliers and NGOs and the Mars Group (as our ultimate owner) to leverage their knowledge and expertise.
• Reporting & Tracking: Own measurement and reporting, utilising external partners, to ensure robust metrics and KPI's to measure program delivery, with a particularly focus on qualitative impact. Deliver regular reporting to senior leadership on program progress, impact and outcomes, including successes, challenges and learnings to raise awareness for future strategic consideration/transparency.
• Benchmarking: Monitor competitor activity, legislation and best practice in this space and share with key stakeholders, proactively identifying risks and opportunities for Hotel Chocolat for cocoa, as well as sharing trends and sustainability best practices where applicable
• Line Management: Own relationship with our NGO partner in Ghana (Green Tropics Group) and functional line manager of the Saint Lucian sustainability team of two people
Beyond Cocoa Sustainability:
• Oversight: Provide oversight and accurate reporting of all sustainability initiatives (excluding brand initiatives), aligning outcomes with organisational goals without directly managing day-to-day implementation or tracking
• Sustainability Expertise: Serve as a subject matter expert and first point of contact on sustainability initiatives for other parts of the business
• Thought leadership and collaboration: Collaborate with functional leaders (e.g. procurement, operations, product development, technical, commercial) to design and implement sustainability initiatives that align with broader business goals.
• External insight: Provide oversight on regulatory landscape, emerging trends and competitor activity, for insight into our business strategy
• Reporting and tracking: co-ordinate with functional leads to deliver consolidated reporting for management oversight on delivery of business wide sustainability initiatives and ensure functional leads are delivering tracking for their areas
  
  Passion and strong drive for results: steadfastly pushing yourself and others for results in ambiguous environments
• Sustainability Program Leadership: demonstrable experience in sustainability program design, implementation, and reporting, ideally within the agricultural or food industry, with experience in supply chain and farming sustainability programs.
• Strategic Oversight and Cross-Functional Collaboration: Proven experience in setting strategic direction, particularly with programs that require alignment with broader business objectives, alongside cross-functional teams.
• Stakeholder Management: background in managing relationships with external partners, suppliers, NGOs, and industry stakeholders
• Budget and KPI Management: Experience managing program budgets, tracking KPIs, and reporting on program outcomes to senior leadership.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Communication: Excellent communication skills to engage stakeholders at all levels, both internal (functional leads) and external (suppliers, NGOs), ensuring clarity and alignment.
• Tech Proficiency: Skilled in relevant tools (e.g., Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint) and sustainability software, with the ability to leverage these for reporting, tracking, and collaboration.
Desirable Experience & Skills
• Sustainability Program Leadership: ideally within the agricultural or food industry, with experience in supply chain and farming sustainability programs.
• People Management: Experience managing director dotted line reports, including team members from varied cultural backgrounds.
• Analytical and Reporting Skills: Proficient in metrics tracking, data analysis, and synthesizing complex information into meaningful reports for leadership.
• Project and Program Management: Highly organized with the ability to oversee multiple initiatives, track timelines, and ensure alignment across functional areas.
  
  Here at Hotel Chocolat, we're passionate about more than just chocolate - we're passionate about creating positive change with our commitment to drive sustainability and a desire to make a real difference., We're one of the UK's favourite premium chocolate brands, with a range of products spanning luxury gifts, alcohol and our pioneering drinking chocolate system, the Velvetiser .
A cacao pod takes years to grow - it can't be rushed if it's going to be just right for our products. The same can be said for Hotel Chocolat, which originally started as a mint production company before we realised it was luxury chocolate that we were really passionate about. Now, we're market leaders in the industry. What began as an online-only business grew to over 100 stores across the UK, and we're still growing… Today, we're multi-category, multi-channel, and multi-territory, and our customers, colleagues, cacao farmers and suppliers all benefit from the success we make together.

As well as a competitive salary and a range of company benefits including private healthcare cover, enhanced maternity and paternity leave and Company pension contributions, you'll receive 50% discount on all products, and a 70% discount for you and your guests when you stay at our Rabot Estate hideaway on the paradise island of Saint Lucia. Here at Hotel Chocolat, we've adopted hybrid working. You'll join us on site for 3 days a week to engage and collaborate as a team, with our stakeholders and suppliers, but you can figure out which sites, which days and where you need to be to get your work done. Stakeholders for this role are mainly based across our on-site locations in Royston, St Neots and Huntingdon. For the other 2 days - you can work from wherever you like! There will also be the opportunity for occasional travel to St. Lucia and Ghana. This is a full-time, Monday to Friday role, however we're not 'clock watchers' here at Hotel Chocolat, we simply ask that you are available between the core hours of 10am to 4pm and you can flex your remaining hours accordingly.