Associate Director - Sales Planning, Pet

Business Unit Overview

Headquartered in Lakeville, Minn., Post Consumer Brands, a business unit of Post Holdings, Inc., is dedicated to providing people and their pets with delicious food choices for every taste and budget. The company's portfolio includes beloved brands such as Honey Bunches of Oats™, PEBBLES™, Grape-Nuts™ and Malt-O-Meal™ cereal and Peter Pan™ peanut butter, as well as Rachael Ray® Nutrish™, Kibbles 'n Bits™ and 9Lives™ dog and cat food. Post also provides private label solutions to customers in pet food, cereal, nut butters and granola. As a company committed to high standards of quality and to our values, we are driven by one idea: To make lives better by making delicious food accessible for all. For more information about our brands, visit www.postconsumerbrands.com and follow us on LinkedIn or Facebook for the latest news.

Brand

At Post Consumer Brands, we’ve spent generations showing up for families, starting with breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Our cereals have become a trusted part of daily routines, helping spark conversations, fuel busy mornings, and create everyday moments that bring families closer together, including their furry four-legged family members, who have recently become a part of our story. As families have evolved, so have we. What began at the breakfast table has expanded into snacks, peanut butter, and pet food, because caring for a family means feeding every part of it. With the addition of several iconic pet brands, we’ve extended our purpose: to make high-quality, accessible food for everyone under the same roof.

This phase is still new, and that’s what makes it exciting. As we continue to grow across grocery and pet, we’re looking for people who care about good food, thoughtful work, and the kind of impact that stretches from store shelves to kitchen tables, and food bowls, across the country.

Location Description

Post Consumer Brands corporate headquarters in Lakeville, Minnesota, is about 20 miles south of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Lakeville has all the benefits of smaller town living with access to everything a large metropolitan area has to offer. Join more than 400 team members collaborating on the two-building campus to help put breakfast on the tables of millions of consumers in North America. 

Responsibilities

Job Summary:

The Associate Director of Sales Planning plays a pivotal role in shaping and executing customer-specific commercial strategies that align with Post Consumer Brands (PCB) goals to drive profitable growth across the pet portfolio. This role leads the development and execution of customer specific go-to-market plans, collaborating closely across sales teams and functional areas to ensure seamless delivery. The ideal candidate brings a strategic mindset, strong leadership, excellent communication, and a proven ability to influence both internal and customer-facing stakeholders to deliver exceptional results.

Key Accountabilities

• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner with customer teams and HQ leaders to consolidate and share actionable insights on sales performance, promotion effectiveness, and merchandising results.
• Strategic Business Planning: Lead the development of annual plans, joint business planning, and customer reviews by delivering data-driven insights and collaborating on impactful presentation materials.
• Commercial Execution: Identify sales growth opportunities across distribution, shelving, merchandising, and pricing using syndicated data and analytics.
• Communication Ownership: Develop tools to continuously improve communication ease, clarity and effectiveness across the enterprise.
• Analytical Proficiency: Leverage data and analytics to inform decision-making and optimize trade spending across pet portfolio and support their implementation with customer selling teams.
• Performance Management: Take accountability and ownership for teams’ results, demonstrate an understanding of our consumers & customers, and actively prioritize efforts that yield outcomes.
• Customer Partnership: Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with key decision-makers at strategic retail customers, positioning PCB as a preferred / joint business partner serving as the voice of the customer within headquarters.

• Forecasting and Demand Alignment: Lead the customer-level sales forecasting process, partnering with Sales, Demand Planning, Supply Chain, and Finance to improve forecast accuracy, identify risks and opportunities, and align commercial plans with supply availability.
• Sales Planning Process Excellence: Standardize planning tools, reporting, assumptions, and operating routines across customer teams to improve decision quality, speed, and accountability.
• Talent Development: Build and maintain a high-performing team, fostering a culture of excellence and innovation by providing ongoing guidance, coaching, and development.
• Industry Expertise: Stay abreast of industry trends, competitive landscape, and consumer behavior to identify growth opportunities.

Qualifications

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, marketing, or related field; MBA preferred.
• Minimum 10+ years of progressive experience in trade marketing, sales, category management, or retail merchandising within the consumer packaged goods industry.
• Proven track record of delivering exceptional results in a fast-paced, competitive environment.
• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills with the ability to influence at all levels of the organization.
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain strong relationships with key internal and external partners.
• Demonstrate a strong understanding of financial metrics and their impact on business performance.
• Experience with trade planning and management software.
• Advanced Excel and data-visualization capabilities; experience with trade promotion management, forecasting, syndicated data, and business intelligence platforms.
• Proven ability to recruit, lead and develop high-performing teams.
• Successful demonstration of analytical skills using various data sources (e.g., Nielsen, IRI, CPM, sales data.)
• Excellent communication and presentation skills with an aptitude to simplify complex subject matter.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (i.e., Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook), Tableau, etc.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and make effective decisions in situations involving ambiguity, incomplete information, or rapidly changing customer needs.

Associate Director, Sales Planning role is located in Lakeville, MN with a hybrid schedule (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in office, Monday & Friday work from home); Open to remote for the right candidate.

Willingness to travel based on customer and business needs is required.

 

The pay range for this position is $102,093 - $159,265 per year.