Sales Director

The world needs our help. By 2050, there will be 9 billion people on the planet with less arable land than ever before. We need a solution to cultivate more using less and define the future of farming for generations to come. In 2004, AeroFarms began transforming agriculture with humans and our planet at the forefront.

In 2021, with 20 current patents, 60 pending patents, and 200 invention disclosures, AeroFarms agriculture technology continues to grow unprecedented sustainable products, delivering elevated flavor, taste, experience, quality, access, and unmatched nutrition to you.

Here’s how we’re growing the best plants possible for the betterment of humanity:

• Researching and understanding plants to be better, more intuitive farmers
• Elevating local communities by increasing access to nutritious, high-quality, consistent, and safe products in a way that’s better for you and the planet
• Protecting and sustaining our environment for future generations
• Pioneering consistent, and scalable indoor vertical farming food safety & traceability practices, and manufacturing standards
• Investing in our AeroFarms humans and fostering our diverse company culture of inclusion, equity, excellence, teachability and curiosity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPX7ZS0wqWI]

As AeroFarms approaches our next phase of explosive growth, we seek out creative, motivated humans who will join us in disrupting industry standards and lead the way in vertical farming, artificial intelligence, and plant biology breakthroughs to solve, and tackle global issues.

If a team of 200 intellectually curious and caring humans, expansive global operations, and our change-the-world mission resonates with you, apply today:

AeroFarms is seeking a Sales Director

Position Summary: Southeast Sales Director is responsible for building strategic relationships in the southeast for the Danville expansion, with the goal of authorizing, merchandising, tracking, reporting, and selling of AeroFarms branded retail products as well as excess yield to partners.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following.

• Directly manage the retail sales customers inclusive of regional / boutique grocery, and distributors, and independents. (Example: Safeway East, Harris Teeter, the Fresh Market, Publix, Costco, Mom’s)
• Partner with key retailers to implement and drive Danville retail strategy at both store, and buyer levels.
• Develop & manage credible relationships with regional / boutique grocery, distributors, and brokers.
• Lead relationships with key distributors and brokers to deliver both column & revenue targets.
• Identify short- and long-term growth opportunities within existing and new retail customers from both the innovation lens and existing portfolio.
• Ability to problem solve at store shelf and commitment to bring creative solutions to real-time business opportunities.
• Own forecasting for assigned accounts in conjunction with customer logistics and participate in the development of the account tactical planning.
• Develop a strong understanding of competitive leafy green landscape and ability to effectively communicate competitive insights through formal/prepared/regular monthly presentations.
• Ability to guide AeroFarms analyst on customer weekly sales reports on assigned customer accounts.

Qualifications: 

• Preferred 7 years retail sales and merchandising experience either through employment.
• Must have clean driving record with ability to be traveling by car within 200-mile radius.
• General understanding of the consumer package goods retail landscape
• Ability to prioritize and manage time effectively, while thriving in a consumer facing environment
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Relationship building and management at department, store manager, and buyer level.
• Analytical skills translatable to insight driving presentations.
• Collaborate on trade spend analysis at customer level ROI.
• Ability to calculate margin and mark-up.
• Strong/proficient with PowerPoint and Excel
• Motivated and enthusiastic with a passion for achieving success (winning).
• Perform other duties as may be assigned inclusive of deliveries, samplings, product cuttings, or industry events.
• Leads food service & outlet customer supply chain to ensure the entire farm is sold, every week throughout the year and years ahead... feeding our communities with everything we grow.

Education/Experience:

• 7 years sales, strong preference for fresh produce experience
• Bachelor’s degree preferred, but not requires. MBA not required.
• Track record in delivering strong sales and customer development into new geographies.
• Hunter mentality

Personal Attributes

• Collaboration - we know we cannot fix the worlds problems as an individual, we have to work together as a team to make that happen. Teamwork is how we get there! 
• Communication - we are a small company (in relative terms - 200 employees), we work well together because we communicate well with each other. You must demonstrate why our mission is important to you: everyone who works at AeroFarms has a strong link to the mission: we want to hear why it means something to you!
• Agility - What we do has never been done before: we are an innovation company, there is no right or wrong way to do things, we constantly develop how we operate, we can always elevate what we are doing and never claim to have it right. 
• Accountability - we don’t micromanage, we hire individuals who know what they need to do and can do so with minimal direction and take ownership of their projects and deadlines. 
• Respect - We are already starting our journey scaling around the world: we want our team to represent every kind of individual out on plant earth and we need to respect different people, different ideas, different cultures etc. We can learn so much from each other, but respect is key
• Empowerment - we provide an environment for growth and development: we need your help to develop our business, we will help you develop in your career, and sky is the limit given our growth plans!! 

*Please note that AeroFarms does not work with any external staffing/recruitment vendors. Any unsolicited resumes shared with the AeroFarms team will be considered property of AeroFarms and no recruitment fees of any kind will be paid or owed unless an existing recruitment agreement exists alongside with specific engagement for the role in question.