What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director of Client Management position at Portillo Sales & Marketing?
We are a family-owned foodservice brokerage representing leading food and beverage brands across the western United States. We operate in four markets (Northern California, Southern California, Las Vegas, and Hawaii). Our 30 person team works with operators and distributors to grow our client’s brands in the markets we serve.
We are growing and adding senior leadership to support that growth. This is a newly created role reporting directly to the President.
THE ROLE
The Director of Client Management owns the manufacturer relationship for Portillo’s principals. You are the manufacturer’s primary strategic contact at Portillo: the person their VP of Sales calls for updates, market reviews, and growth planning.
This is not account management. This is client strategy. You don’t process requests. You build business plans, present performance data, identify problems before the manufacturer notices them, and ensure every manufacturer in your portfolio feels like Portillo is the best investment they’ve made in a broker.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
• Build and present business reviews for clients using distributor depletion data, CRM activity reports, and other market intelligence
• Construct annual objective plans collaboratively with each manufacturer: growth targets, account-level tactics, promotional calendars, and KPI tracking
• Write and distribute monthly performance updates with market rankings, regional highlights, and strategic direction
• Monitor each client’s business health weekly, identifying velocity declines, account losses, or competitive threats before they become crises
• Coordinate with Market Directors across multiple regions to ensure field teams execute against each client’s objectives
• Manage trade spend, promotional programs, and sample coordination for each client
• Represent Portillo at manufacturer annual reviews, broker summits, and market visits
• Serve as the voice of the manufacturer inside Portillo, translating what the manufacturer needs into what the field team executes
WHAT YOU WON’T DO
• Manage AEs or field sales reps (that’s the Market Directors’ job)
• Run internal operations (that’s the VP of Operations’ job)
You sit at the intersection of client relationship and business performance. You translate field activity into data and narrative that manufacturers value. You translate manufacturer objectives into execution plans the field team can follow.
WHO YOU ARE
• 8–15 years in the food industry, specifically in foodservice (not retail)
• Background in one of two lanes: (a) manufacturer-side: you’ve been a Regional Sales Manager, Director of Broker Management, or VP of Foodservice Sales and managed broker relationships from the manufacturer’s seat, OR (b) broker-side: you’ve been a senior client manager or director at a foodservice brokerage managing 10 manufacturer relationships
• You think like a manufacturer. You understand their P&L, growth objectives, trade spend ROI, and what keeps their VP of Sales up at night
• You are data-driven. You build reports, read distributor depletion data, calculate velocity, and present numbers with confidence
• You communicate with substance. Your business reviews are tight, visual, and action-oriented. Your emails are clear and concise
• You are proactive, not reactive. You identify a declining account in week 2, not month 3
• You are based in SoCal and can be in-market daily
WHAT WE OFFER
• Competitive base salary plus quarterly performance bonus tied to client retention and portfolio growth
• A newly created senior leadership role with direct access to the President
• A growing company investing in infrastructure, technology, and talent
• A team that values execution, accountability, and genuine partnership with our manufacturers
• As Portillo scales, this role is built to grow into VP of Client Management: leading a client management team and owning the client side of our business. We'll share the milestones in the interview process.
TO APPLY
Send your resume and a brief note explaining why you’re the right fit for this role. If you’ve built a business review, a scorecard, or a client performance report you’re proud of, include it… It tells us more than a resume can.