Country Manager

Role Purpose

• ZURU is one of the fastest growing companies in the world that is known for its agility, creativity and new-age manufacturing techniques. The Country Manager to lead the ZURU team in our Toronto Centre of Excellence leading our Toys team and portfolio for Canada.
• Disrupt the market to better meet consumer & customer needs: develop and execute the customer strategic plans to disrupt established players and achieve ZURU company goals across all toy categories.
• Drive ZURU financial performance to unlock the fuel for further investment in growing our share of shelf: proactively manage sales and profit potential to maximize ZURU P&L delivery, unlocking margin to reinvest in our biggest bets. 
• Build long term strategic partnerships that create mutual value & enable delivery of our Canadian business goals: negotiate and execute Joint Business Plans with Walmart and Costco that create the win/win.
• Execute with excellence: maximize availability, visibility and awareness of ZURU brands instore and online via best in class delivery of distribution, feature, display and marketing activation across our biggest bets.
• Be a captain of culture for ZURU: ensure as ZURU rapidly grows we maintain the magic, entrepreneurial culture that enables us to challenge the status quo and win together – whilst always ensuring we put people first and ensure that is instilled day to day in the office.

How You Will Make An Impact

• Focus on building strategic relationships with key Canadian retailers, ensuring our Platform Brands and Big Bet items are maximised every season. In doing so you will ensure ZURU is capturing or over-indexing its Share of Shelf vs competitors. You will work closely with commercial, sales ops and marketing teams to craft pitches to grow listings and drive growth. You will be able to work and deliver results while working as part of a cross-functional team across different time zones.

Core Roles & Responsibilities

• Complete ownership of the account P&L, responsible for driving sales, optimizing trade investment and maximizing product mix to achieve financial goals
• Devise channel and pricing strategy and influence cross-functional adoption to secure the tools, products and support you need to drive your business & win in.
• Leadership of the Canadian sales team to ensure KPIs are met. You will lead from the front, leading our largest account in Canada and showing the team what good looks like.
• Lead cross-functional business teams to drive over achievement against sales performance, P&L and supply metrics
• Constantly add value by developing and improving commercial processes to improve performance and drive efficiencies.
• Focus on initiatives that embed ZURU as a category champion across all buying teams that will enhance and grow business for both ZURU and Walmart.
• Foster a team culture that supports achievement of record breaking market disruption and rapid growth whilst resolving business issues, building relationships and influencing broader capability development

Skills & Experience Required

• Minimum 5 years of experience in CPG/Toy industry
• Strong commercial acumen, strategic thinking, and problem-solving skills
• Demonstrated leadership ability to influence and motivate cross-functional teams, holding stakeholders accountable to deliver business objectives
• Proven successful track record in sales with a partnering approach for long-term objectives and commercial returns
• Ability to assess market trends and offer innovative solutions for customer problems
• Operates effectively in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment
• Toy industry experience preferred but not required