Your Opportunity as the Director, Commercialization (Pet Sales Team)

You will be responsible for leading the translation of Brand and Customer strategies into business plans. You will lead a team that includes Brand Commercialization and Customer Commercialization while also working with a diverse cross-functional team to support Pet SBA Long Term Strategies. 

The commercial organization is charged with commercializing activities by translating national strategies and initiatives into an actionable Go-To-Market approach across U.S. Retail. This role is a key partner with all our cross-functional teams, working closely with sales, marketing, finance, project management, and demand and supply planning to provide inputs to help drive strategic decision making across our business.

Location: Orrville, OH (Close proximity to Cleveland/Akron)

Work Arrangements: Hybrid ~30% onsite presence

In this role you will:

• Create and deploy National and Channel GTM activities

  • Translate and integrate category growth initiatives and brand strategies into national go to market plan

  • Set channel level AOP (Annual Operating Plan)

  • Identify, manage, and resolve channel conflicts

• Filter and set priorities for sales organization through category lens

  • Own and develop stories around key business driver (e.g., pricing, innovation, assortment)

• Act as internal voice for the customer

  • Be able to speak to customer and channel opportunities (know what is possible)

  • Represent customer and channel strategies at stage-gate and consensus forecast meetings

• Support customer initiative sell-in

  • Create all national new item sales material (includes innovation preview)

  • Sets distribution/NIF assumptions and intro activation levers

  • Internal leader of Joint Business Planning (JBP) (CC owns externally)

• Lead and develop BC/CC team

  • Identify growth opportunities for team members

  • Provide feedback and direction

  • Translates national brand strategies, marketing plans, and insights into sales strategies by key customers and channels

  • Provide support for new item launches and associated GTMS and SKU optimizations

  • Participate and provide key inputs into the development of Long Range and Annual Operating Plans (quota, trade, situation assessments) from a Category, Customer, Channel, & Competitive lens

  • Contribute to the creation of channel specific sales initiatives to achieve sales priorities and objectives: distribution, pricing, shelving, merchandising, and new items launches

  • Key stakeholder in developing national sales presentations and National New item Webcasts, along with corresponding sales tool kits using category and shopper insights

  • Provide recommendations on increasing efficiency and effectiveness of specific trade promotions/other sales activities and other ROI improvement opportunities

  • Assist in the development of trade promotion strategies, merchandising plans, and major trade initiatives

  • Help provide regular updates to Field Sales of key marketing elements and initiatives 

  • Provide timely reporting to Business unit on key initiates such new item distribution targets, trade strategy changes, and customer strategies

The Right Place for You

We are bold, kind, strive to do the right thing, we play to win, and we believe in a strong community that thrives together. Our culture is rooted in our Basic Beliefs, and we believe in supporting every employee by meeting their physical, emotional, and financial needs.

What we are looking for:

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree

• 10+ years of CPG experience

• 5+ years of experience in Customer Marketing (Brand Commercialization/Customer Commercialization), Brand Marketing, or related “go-to-market” commercial responsibility

• Experience commercializing multiple brands, customer/sales development, project management; ideally, combined experience across total path from strategy to sell-in

• Experience managing a team of people

• Previous experience with Joint Business Planning process

• Demonstrated financial acumen

• Demonstrated ability to work with cross-functional partners to drive business results

• Demonstrated understanding of customer strategies and retail environment

• Customer/sales facing experience

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office

Additional skills and experience that we think would make someone successful in this role (not required):

• Master of Business Administration

• Prior experience and demonstrated understanding of an accrual-based trade system

• Pricing strategy experience across multiple brands

• Prior experience in other commercial areas including Sales, Marketing, Category Leadership, etc.

• Experience in Spotfire, Tableau, CAS or similar platforms

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