Senior Director Sales, Strategic Accounts

Location: Minneapolis, MN

*The location is flexible for this position and can be Minneapolis, Dallas or near a major airport.  

The Hershey Company Salty Snacks Division is seeking our next Senior Director Sales - Strategic Account Team, to profitably grow Hershey’s Salty Snacks business at Target, Amazon and the Natural Channel.  As the primary leader for Target, Amazon and the Natural Channel, this leader is accountable for delivering net sales revenue, customer investment targets, and market share targets for the Hershey Salty Snacks organization. This leader will directly manage the sales, sales forecasting, trade management, revenue management and customer marketing resources that support Hershey’s Salty Snacks business for Target, Amazon, the Natural Channel and indirectly lead the cross-functional resources (i.e., Sales Strategy, Sales Finance, Operations, etc.).

This role demands excellence across the key fundamentals of customer management related to delivering strategic business results for the customer, shopper, and the Hershey organization.

Key Responsibilities:

• Ensure the development & delivery of key objectives – Net Sales, Trade Management, and Market Share – and the deployment of resources and activities to successfully achieve the Company’s goals for Target, Amazon, Ecommerce and The Natural Channel
• Lead team customer planning process, including driving fiscally responsible planning and coordinated trade planning processes including trade effectiveness and efficiency which drive return on investment.
• Lead routine and ad-hoc brand specific business and customer analyses (eg: brand performance, competitive analysis, consumer tracking, customer/shopper tracking, shipment, customer spins and other analyses) incorporating varied data sources (eg: POS, panel, etc.). 
• Effectively establish, lead, monitor and course-correct strategic team sales and agency priorities.  Lead customer team in developing customer category selling tools/info for Hershey Salty Snacks which influence customer category strategy, assortment, pricing & promotional planning. 
• Collaborate with cross-functional internal, sales teams and broker support teams (Natural Channel), in coordinating transparent customer sales planning, volume forecasting and trade reporting.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams to provide impactful routine and ad-hoc daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual sales team, customer and competitive communications
• Lead holistic Omni-channel strategy in collaboration with the customer and our internal partners. JBP planning to include holistic investment of trade, WASTE and media to drive profitable growth.
• Calls on senior executives and management at Target, Amazon, The Natural Channel and across their divisions with responsibility for Hershey Salty Snacks to secure distribution and merchandising, negotiate sales programs, and develop a strategic business plan based on consumer and shopper insights.
• Develops sales and marketing objectives and strategies to support priority brand positioning, equity and marketplace initiatives, based on the comprehensive understanding of our products, competition, consumer and shopper habits.
• Oversees development of the customer’s annual business plans, enhances brand equity and profitably grows market share through in-depth consumer and shopper understanding.
• Leads a direct and in-direct team to achieve the goals for these customers by motivating them to maximize the sales of our products –
• Supporting efforts to elevate penetration of Target, Amazon & the Natural Channel within the Hershey Organization
• Ensuring rigorous planning processes are in place and practiced
• Monitoring of sales, trade spending and market share
• Sales target setting and extending support to achieve targets
• Coaching, development and onboarding of sales teams
• Sharing Best Demonstrated Practices across the team

Minimum Education & Experience Requirements:

• Education: BS/BA in Business Administration or equivalent experience
• Experience: 8-10 years of progressive sales and/or marketing management experience; experience with establishing strategic relationships with key customers
• Strong understanding of Ecommerce & Natural Channel dynamics, relationships
• Strong understanding of P&L dynamics
• Strategic channel insights and ability to drive effective customer and channel planning processes
• Knowledge of industry Category Management processes & systems (POS, HH Panel, etc.)
• Ability to interpret data and determine key actions in response
• Superior communication skills, both verbal and written
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, Powerpoint)

Travel

• Ability to travel ~50% of time