Sales Director

Scope: Major Grocery | Customer Strategy | Commercial Leadership

The Business

Our client is a major international food group with a substantial UK operation, significant market positions and long standing partnerships with many of the UK’s leading grocery retailers.

The organisation is entering an exciting period of growth and evolution.

Significant investment is being made across Commercial, Category, Innovation and Customer Development as the business looks to accelerate its established portfolio while simultaneously creating new products, categories and consumer occasions.

Their ambition is to combine the scale and capability of a major food group with greater commercial agility, sharper customer thinking and an increasingly consumer led approach to growth.

Central to achieving this will be the calibre of their commercial leadership.

They are therefore interested in senior leaders who have developed within sophisticated branded FMCG environments and can bring fresh thinking, strong customer leadership and a broader understanding of how Brand, Category, Consumer and Commercial strategy come together.

The Opportunity

As Sales Director, you will become a senior commercial leader within the UK organisation, taking responsibility for strategically important Grocery partnerships and helping shape the future customer agenda.

This is considerably broader than simply leading a sales number.

You will be expected to develop deeper strategic partnerships with customers, challenge how the organisation approaches commercial planning and bring fresh thinking to the relationship between Customer, Category, Innovation and the Consumer.

Your vision will extend beyond the immediate trading cycle.

You will help establish where the business and its customers can grow together over the next three to five years, identifying emerging consumer needs, new category opportunities and innovation platforms capable of creating meaningful incremental growth.

Working alongside senior leaders across Category, Marketing, Innovation, Operations, Supply Chain and Finance, you will ensure the customer sits at the heart of wider business strategy. Equally important will be your leadership of people. You will coach, challenge and inspire a talented Commercial Team, raising capability while developing the next generation of senior commercial leaders.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and lead the strategic customer agenda across major UK Grocery partnerships
• Build exceptional senior relationships with customers, moving conversations beyond annual trading towards long term strategic growth
• Create compelling customer visions combining Consumer, Shopper, Category and Commercial thinking
• Lead sophisticated Joint Business Planning and establish clear multi year priorities with strategic customers
• Identify emerging consumer needs, shopper missions and category opportunities capable of unlocking future growth
• Work closely with Category and Insight to translate market intelligence into meaningful customer strategies
• Partner with Marketing and Innovation to shape commercially relevant NPD and future product development
• Champion innovation with customers, creating excitement around new products, categories and consumption occasions
• Bring greater sophistication to Revenue Growth Management, promotional strategy and commercial decision making
• Lead, coach and develop a high performing Commercial Team, raising capability, accountability and ambition
• Drive collaboration across Commercial, Category, Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain and Finance
• Act as a senior commercial voice within the leadership team, bringing an external, customer and consumer perspective to wider strategic discussions
• Challenge established thinking constructively and help embed faster, sharper and more progressive ways of working

Why Apply

• Step into a genuine Sales Director mandate within a major international food group
• Lead some of the organisation’s most strategically important UK Grocery relationships
• Take your experience of world class branded FMCG and apply it across a considerably broader commercial leadership platform
• Influence Customer Strategy, Category, Innovation and future commercial capability
• Join at a point of significant investment and change where fresh thinking and new ideas are actively encouraged
• Lead and develop a talented Commercial Team and help create the organisation’s future commercial leaders
• Gain significant Executive exposure and influence the wider direction of a substantial UK food organisation
• Create a platform for future progression into broader Commercial Leadership, General Management and MD opportunities

Candidate Profile

We are looking for an outstanding commercial leader who has developed within a leading branded Food or FMCG environment. You could currently be operating as a Sales Director, Customer Director, Channel Director, Business Unit Director, Commercial Director or Head of Sales.

Equally, your current job title is less important than the scale, sophistication and impact of the role you are performing today.

You will ideally bring:

• Significant experience leading major UK Grocery customer relationships
• Strong grounding within branded Food or FMCG
• Best in class exposure to Customer Strategy, Joint Business Planning and Category led selling
• A sophisticated understanding of brands, consumers and shoppers and how these translate into sustainable customer growth
• Strong exposure to innovation and the successful commercialisation of NPD
• Experience operating successfully within complex cross functional and matrix organisations
• The credibility and presence to influence senior customer stakeholders and Executive leadership teams
• Outstanding people leadership credentials with a track record of developing high performing commercial talent
• Strategic depth combined with the ability to turn thinking into action
• Intellectual curiosity, energy and the confidence to challenge established approaches

This is an opportunity for an accomplished branded FMCG commercial leader to take everything they have learned within a high quality consumer environment and apply it on a significantly broader leadership stage.

For someone ready to move beyond leading major customers and towards shaping the future commercial direction of a substantial food organisation, this could be an exceptional next career move.

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