Program Manager, 3P Seafood Distribution, Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market (WFM) sources seafood through a complex network of third-party distributors whose performance directly determines what customers find on the shelf. This role owns that network, from the contracts that govern it, the relationships that sustain it, and the strategic path forward for how WFM partners with 3Ps to meet quality, availability, and cost-to-serve goals at scale. You will be the single-threaded owner for 3P seafood distributor contract management and performance and the strategic architect helping WFM define what the right 3P model looks like going forward. This means owning both the operational rigor (contract terms, service levels, compliance) and the longer-horizon strategic thinking, challenging assumptions about how WFM"s seafood distribution network should be structured to protect quality differentiation and supply security over the long-term.

This is a high-visibility, high-complexity role that sits at the intersection of Procurement, Inventory Planning, Store Operations, Finance, and Supplier Partnerships. The right candidate brings deep distributor contract experience, strong financial modeling skills, and the credibility to lead WFM"s 3P strategy in a perishable's environment where margin, quality, and supply continuity are non-negotiable.

Key job responsibilities

3P Seafood Distributor Contract Management & Negotiations:

• Own the full lifecycle of 3P seafood distributor contracts: from initial scoping, RFP/RFQ, and negotiation through execution, renewal, amendment, and termination. This includes fee structures, service-level agreements, delivery schedules, quality standards, cold-chain requirements, and cost-to-serve terms.
• Lead negotiations on rate increases, new service charges, and contract amendments: building and defending WFM"s counter-position with documented cost offsets, volume commitments, and business case modeling. When distributors issue unilateral rate changes, own the response framework and resolution.
• Develop and maintain a contract management framework: renewal timelines, escalation triggers, performance benchmarks, and obligation tracking across all active 3P seafood distributor relationships. Maintain centralized repository of key terms, expiration dates, and open obligations.
• Monitor distributor performance against contractual obligations: fill rates, on-time delivery, EDI compliance (including ASN accuracy), cold-chain integrity, and spec adherence. Quantify gaps, drive resolution, and escalate when underperformance creates store-level or financial risk.
• Partner with Finance to model contract economics: total cost of distribution, landed cost impact by distributor, and financial exposure from service failures or contract changes. Build business cases for contract restructuring, consolidation, or termination decisions.

3P Strategy & Path Forward for WFM:

• Lead the development of WFM"s 3P seafood distributor strategy: defining what the right distributor model looks like across a 2-3 year horizon.
• Assess current 3P distributor network against WFM"s regional supply requirements: identify coverage gaps, redundancies, cost-to-serve inefficiencies, and capability constraints (e.g., cold-chain infrastructure, processing capacity, delivery frequency). Translate findings into actionable network design recommendations.
• Design and manage distributor onboarding and qualification frameworks: defining the standards (quality, compliance, EDI, cold-chain, financial stability) new 3P partners must meet before going live. Own the go-live process for new distributor relationships including cross-functional readiness (Procurement, IP, Store Ops, Finance).
• Identify and evaluate opportunities for strategic 3P partnerships: including exclusivity arrangements, co-investment in processing or logistics capacity, and multi-year supply commitments that create competitive advantage for WFM. Build and present business cases to leadership for partnership structures that go beyond transactional distribution agreements.
• Serve as WFM"s primary point of escalation and resolution when distributor relationships reach inflection points: contract disputes, service failures, unilateral cost actions, or capacity constraints that threaten store-level availability. Own the resolution playbook and the outcome.

Distributor Performance Management & Compliance:

• Build and own the 3P distributor scorecard: tracking performance across fill rate, on-time delivery, EDI/ASN compliance, invoice accuracy, spec adherence, and cold-chain integrity. Use scorecard data to drive accountability conversations, renegotiations, and network-level decisions.
• Own the delivery schedule coordination process between 3P distributors and WFM DCs: ensuring schedule changes are communicated cross-functionally to Procurement, Inventory Planning, and Store Operations before store-facing communications go out. Prevent coordination failures that create downstream supply risk.
• Manage distributor compliance with WFM quality standards, animal welfare certifications, and labeling/documentation requirements. Escalate spec violations with financial impact quantification and a defined remediation timeline. Ensure compliance failures are resolved - not absorbed silently.

Cross-Functional Alignment & Stakeholder Management:

• Serve as the connective tissue between 3P distributors and WFM"s internal functions of Procurement, Inventory Planning, Store Operations, Finance, and Legal. Ensure distributor commitments are operationally real and that internal teams have what they need to execute against them.
• Lead cross-functional working sessions to resolve distributor-related conflicts, align on go-live readiness, and unblock execution. Develop and deliver executive-level communications on distributor contract status, negotiation outcomes, strategic recommendations, and path-forward options.
• Manage competing priorities across DC Operations, Finance, and Supplier teams to maintain program momentum on distributor transitions, new go-lives, and contract renegotiations. Document program outcomes, lessons learned, and playbooks for future distributor management.