Overview
The Sales Strategy & Planning Manager serves as a key member of Marzetti's Sales Strategy & Planning function, responsible for translating company and brand strategies into actionable sales strategies and execution plans that drive profitable Retail growth. The role serves as a critical connector between Sales and cross-functional partners, including Marketing, Revenue Growth Management (RGM), Category Management, Trade Analytics, and Supply Chain, to develop and execute strategies across merchandising, assortment, pricing, shelving, innovation, forecasting, annual business planning, and retailer execution, with a clear focus on profitable growth and achievement of financial and non-financial objectives.
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Responsibilities What You'll Do
- Drives merchandising, assortment, pricing, and shelving (MAPS) strategies as part of internal and customer annual business planning and reviews, translating company and brand priorities into actionable sales plans that deliver profitable Retail growth and business objectives.
- Leads the sales planning components of new product launches, including retailer-specific distribution assumptions, competitive and category considerations, volume forecasts, sales inputs, and trade and channel pricing strategies that optimize customer execution and business results.
- Develops compelling, customer-ready selling stories and materials that equip Sales teams and broker partners to effectively sell new products, seasonal programs, and key brand initiatives.
- Champions the voice of Sales and the customer across cross-functional teams, ensuring retailer insights and executional considerations inform business strategies while translating organizational priorities into clear direction for the field and driving alignment through internal and external business planning and reviews.
- Shapes pricing strategies and recommendations in partnership with RGM, Marketing, and Sales leadership, including support for price changes and development of data-driven rationale and tools that enable effective customer execution.
- Partners with Supply Chain to proactively manage supply and inventory risks, including service disruptions, SKU prioritization, retailer-level inventory strategies, communications, and mitigation of potential obsolete inventory.
- Develops, challenges, and rationalizes volume forecasts for new products, promotions, and assigned businesses, identifying risks, opportunities, and actions required to improve forecast quality and business performance.
- Monitors business performance and leverages data and insights to identify gaps to plan and recommend actions that enable Sales teams to achieve internal and customer-specific financial and non-financial goals, including profitable growth, margin, share, and execution objectives.
Qualifications What You'll Bring
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Sales, or a related field required.
- Minimum of 5 years of professional experience within the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) industry, with experience in Sales, Sales Planning, Trade Development, Category Management, or a related function and demonstrated progression in responsibility.
- Strong analytical and business acumen with the ability to translate data and insights into actionable recommendations.
- Experience utilizing syndicated data and analytics platforms such as Circana (IRI), NielsenIQ, or similar tools.
- Strong presentation development and storytelling skills, with the ability to translate complex information into clear and compelling recommendations.
- Demonstrated hands-on execution and problem-solving capabilities, with a growth mindset and the ability to anticipate business challenges, evaluate alternatives, and develop practical solutions.
- Strong cross-functional collaboration and influencing skills with the ability to build relationships and drive alignment across multiple stakeholders.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to effectively communicate with a variety of audiences.
- Ability to operate effectively in ambiguity, translate complexity into clear recommendations and thought leadership, and manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced, evolving business environment with tight deadlines.
Working Conditions/Environment
Works in a normal office environment where the employee is regularly required to speak, see, hear, sit, stand, talk, type, walk and bend while moving about the facility. The noise level in the office is quiet. Occasional travel to plants or meetings is required.