What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director of Food Ingredient and Export Sales position at Cheese Merchants Of America?
Cheese Merchants is a leader in the Italian cheese category (Parmesan, Romano, Fontina and Asiago) in all aspects of food distribution channels. The Chicago based company has a proven history of sustainable growth for 25 consecutive years and maintains a State-of-the-Art manufacturing facility with zero capacity constraints. A key leader in 4 categories of “dry cheese”, as well as grating, shredding and shaving of hard cheese. Management leads with an entrepreneurial “hands off” style.
The Director of Food Ingredients & Export Sales is a “Sales Hunter” responsible for pipelining and driving new sales in the Food Ingredient & Export segment. You will also have responsibility for strengthening and growing existing customer relationships and managing customer satisfaction. This is a highly entrepreneurial business who takes pride in winning and succeeding.
Key Responsibilities:
60% | New Business Development |
| Identify, analyze and refine pipeline opportunities to reflect customer, product and probability-adjusted volume and margin potential |
| Develop new customer relationships domestically and internationally, plan and create customer account strategy and successfully deliver results that meet or exceed plan goals |
30% | Customer Account Growth |
| Grow existing base of business by becoming more relevant to our customers |
| Lead solution selling efforts by leveraging marketplace insights (gaps) and uncovering unmet customer needs to define new business opportunities and grow the existing base of business |
| Align customer strategies with company strategic plan; developing and initiating action plans to increase share of market |
| Cross functional account management within key strategic accounts such as R&D, Quality, Marketing, etc.
|
10% | Territory and Account Management |
| Provide regular business reviews with accounts to ensure business performance remains on track vs. plan and that issues are dealt with proactively, or when they surface, expeditiously |
| Manage contract pricing of customers including participation in key contract negotiations and/or RFP process |
| Utilize customer feedback and data to provide accurate forecasting to assist in SHF demand planning |
| Perform customer analytics (white space) to identify opportunities within current customer base |
Background Required:
Education: BS or BA from four-year college
Business experience 10 years, including 5-7 years in Dairy Ingredient & Export Sales
Experience with CRM Tool, Advanced Computer skills in PowerPoint, Excel and Word
RFP and RFQ process understanding and management
Contract development, management, and negotiation skills
Travel is 50-75%.
Essential Abilities and Skills:
Energy, Excitement, and Urgency to sell and drive growth
Self-Starter
Has strong initiative, driven and tenacious
Ability to operate and make progress in the face of competing priorities
Comfortable operating in ambiguous situations
Entrepreneurial
Analytical thinking and skills; ability to drill down and ask “why”, inquisitiveness, persistence
Excellent communicator at all levels of organization
Profitability and margin contribution management