Trade Spend Lead

Job Summary:

The Trade Spend Lead is responsible for designing, implementing, and managing Cloverdale Foods Company’s Trade Spend processes, ensuring accuracy, visibility, and alignment across Sales, Accounting, and customer programs. This role will build structure where none currently exists, creating standardized workflows, tools, and reporting that improve how Trade Spend is planned, executed, tracked, and reconciled.

The ideal candidate is highly analytical, process-oriented, and comfortable working with large datasets, complex customer programs, and cross-functional teams. This position requires advanced Microsoft Excell skills, strong problem-solving abilities, and the capability to independently investigate discrepancies across multiple systems and data sources. The Trade Spend Lead will serve as the primary liaison among Sales, Sales Support, Accounting, and customers, ensuring Trade Spend Activity is accurate, timely, and aligned with company financial objectives.

This role plays a key part in closing gaps within Accounts Receivable, improving Trade Spend governance, and driving continuous improvement across the organization.

Office Environment: 95% of the work is conducted in an office setting, may be in person or virtual. Involving time spent on computer research, project management, and communication with team members and stakeholders. Frequent participation in both in-person and virtual meetings, including project updates, strategy sessions, and presentations to management and stakeholders.

Travel: <5% Occasional travel for training, trade events, meetings, conferences, etc.

Schedule: Flexible schedule. Evenings, weekends, and holidays may be needed rarely based on operational requirements.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Design, implement, and continuously improve Cloverdale’s Trade Spend process, including intake, approval, tracking, reconciliation, and reporting workflows.
2. Utilize Microsoft Excel extensively to analyze Trade Spend data, track trends, evaluate promotional effectiveness, ROI, and overall Trade Spend performance.
3. Track, Reconcile, and maintain records of customer programs, deductions, rebates, promotional agreements, disputes, and other customer-specific Trade Spend activity.
4. Navigate customer portals and independently investigate discrepancies across systems and data sources to support timely resolution.
5. Develop accurate forecasts and budgets for Trade Spend initiatives, ensuring alignment with company objectives and financial targets.
6. Manage Trade Spend datasets, ensuring accuracy, completeness, and integrity for analysis and reporting purposes.
7. Build standardized tools, templates, dashboards, and automated workflows to enhance visibility and reduce manual effort.
8. Partner with Sales Representatives to ensure proper deal setup, communication, documentation, and compliance with Trade Spend policies.
9. Lead cross-functional alignment between Sales, Sales Support, Accounting, and Finance to ensure Trade Spend accuracy and timely resolution.
10. Identify opportunities to improve reporting, automate repetitive processes, and enhance visibility into customer account activity and trends.
11. Provide recommendations based on data analysis to optimize Trade Spend allocation and improve promotional strategies.
12. Train internal teams on Trade Spend procedures, expectations, and best practices.
13. Maintain sensitive and confidential financial and customer information with honesty and integrity.
14. Other duties may be assigned.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance, Economics, Data Analytics, or a related field preferred. Equivalent combinations of education and relevant experience will be considered.
• Two or more years of experience in trade spend analysis, preferably within the consumer goods industry, financial analysis, customer program administration, or related experience preferred.
• Experience within manufacturing, food manufacturing, retail, distribution, consumer packaged goods (CPG), or similar industries preferred.
• Experience working with high-volume or complex customer accounts strongly preferred.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret complex data sets.
• Detail oriented with a commitment to accuracy and data integrity.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel is required.
• Utilize Microsoft Excel extensively to analyze Trade Spend data, track trends, assess promotional effectiveness and return on investment, and evaluate overall trade spend performance.
• Experience with advanced formulas, dashboards, Power Query, data visualization, or process automation is preferred.
• Ability to organize, analyze, reconcile, and summarize information from multiple data sources into meaningful business insights.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to build productive working relationships with customers, Sales Representatives, Sales Support, Accounting, and other cross-functional business partners.
• Ability to communicate analytical findings, trends, risks, and recommendations in a clear, concise, and professional manner.
• Ability to effectively present information and participate in problem-solving discussions in one-on-one and small-group settings.
• Strong organizational and time-management skills.
• Self-motivated with a willingness to learn, adapt, and take on new challenges.
• Ability to work independently while contributing positively to a team environment.

Working Conditions/ Physical Requirements:

1. Must be comfortable sharing office space with other professionals and performing repetitive, computer-based tasks. This includes extended periods of sitting, reaching with hands and arms, and using input devices such as a keyboard, mouse, and other tools. The role requires maintaining focus on detailed screen work for prolonged durations, including tasks such as data analysis, report preparation, and troubleshooting operational issues.
2. Must be able to sit, stand, walk, reach, stretch, stoop, and bend for extended periods.
3. Must be able to communicate through various channels, including phone, email, face-to-face, and videoconferencing, effectively building and presenting organized data and plans to leadership, internal and external groups of various sizes, and key stakeholders.

The physical demands described in this job description are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform this job. Other duties or tasks may be assigned as required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

At Cloverdale Foods, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within the following range: $60,320 - $70,720 annually. Actual base pay within that range will depend upon a variety of factors including, but not limited to, job-related knowledge, skill set, level of experience, and geographic market location.

Other components of Cloverdale Foods’ total compensation package include life insurance, medical, dental and vision coverage, pay-for-performance merit increases, and 401(k) with employer match, paid vacation, weekly massage reimbursement, and more.

Cloverdale Foods Company offers a competitive compensation package and an excellent benefits program. For confidential consideration, please send your resume to HRDept@cloverdalefoods.com or Fax: 701-663-0690. To comply with government recordkeeping requirements, please go to http://www.cloverdalefoods.com/employment/apply.asp and send us a completed Online Application along with your resume/cover letter.

Cloverdale Foods Company is an Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.