Senior Customer Development Leader

Position Title: Senior Customer Development Leader – Walmart/Costco Food

Location: Bolton, ON (Hybrid work schedule)

Function: Sales

Job Description Summary

The Senior Customer Development Leader ensures the delivery of business metrics: GSV/ NSV/ Gross Margin and Share for Mars Food & Nutrition Canada for the Walmart and Costco accounts. Accountable for budgetary & trade management, profitable business growth via the achievement of specific distribution, promotional, pricing, planogram, innovation, and shelving execution & negotiation.

What are we looking for?

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration or related field is required; MBA/Graduate-level degree is a plus.
• 5+ (five or more) years’ experience in Sales, Marketing, for Fast Moving Consumer Good Industries.
• Strong CPG Sales experience that includes selling, negotiating and leveraging insights to deliver tailored customer plans, achieving company and customer objectives and advancing category leadership.
• Significant customer experience, preferably with key/strategic customers and proven ability to deliver successful solutions.
• Walmart and Costco experience a strong asset.
• Strong analytical skillset, experience working with syndicated data platforms such as Nielsen.
• Experience with Retail Link, Scintilla, and Circana are strong assets.
• Experience with revenue and trade management systems.
• Ability to travel 20% of the time.

What are the key responsibilities?

• Responsible for achieving profitable sales and share growth in alignment with SCM model & sales plan objectives.
• Lead the development and execution of the customers short- and long-term strategies optimizing profitability, sales revenue and achieving category and customer objectives.
• Responsible for the tactical, daily execution of the business to include merchandising objectives, new item acceptance, assortment optimization, budget adherence, and building customer relationships with the buying desks.
• Key point person for customer on items relating to daily operations of the business within Walmart and Costco.
• Responsible for the development of effective and productive relationships within all levels of customer responsibility, as well as within the sales business unit and Cross-Functional Teams.
• Drive the customer agenda and develop strong and influential relationships with Walmart and Costco focused on delivering shopper, channel and category centric solutions accelerating customer engagement.
• Work with copilots & cross functional business unit resources to develop execution plans that align with the strategy for Mars Food & Nutrition Canada.
• Analyze business opportunities and provide input into the development of go-to-market (i.e. new item launches, trade deployment, pack creation, etc.) plans and activity sets. Work collaboratively with demand planning to provide annual and ongoing customer forecasting for new product concepts, initiatives, and annual brand plans.
• Leverage insights to influence customers to implement solutions and identify new opportunities that will deliver results that are beneficial for both customer, category and business.
• Develops consistently accurate and timely forecasts using a variety of inputs from both consumption and shipment perspective, adopting a continuous improvement mind-set.
• Provide input in the area of collaborative planning, recommending new approaches and processes that ensure better customer planning, input, and alignment of improved activity sets.
• Position must analyze and communicate the future and emerging needs within Walmart and Costco channel so that Mars Food & Nutrition is in a position to be the preferred vendor of the category at Walmart
• Fiscal responsibility, specifically associated with developing, managing and delivering a sound, financial plan for the account and maintaining a year end position
• Manage customer P&L and trade investment that complies with internal and external requirements.

Critical Mars Leadership Capabilities:

• Drives Results
• Customer Focus
• Plans & Aligns
• Collaborates

Key Supporting Competencies:

• Effective communication skills both internally and customer facing - oral, written and active listening.
• Exercises growth mindset and operates with a high level of resiliency.
• Ability to contribute within a team environment & influence cross-functionally with exceptional stakeholder management.
• Ability to build trusting relationships and partnerships internally/externally.
• Understands the organization and knows how to use this knowledge to achieve business results.
• Ability to learn continuously through trade journals, category trend reporting, financial reports, attending Customer events & forums.

What can you expect from Mars?

• Work with diverse and talented Associates, all guided by the Five Principles.
• Join a purpose driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.
• A strong focus on learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.
• An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.

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