Retail Sales Director in Cambridge

Role: Retail Sales Director
Country: UK
Location: Dependent on applicant. The business expects the successful candidate to work from the Cambridge office approximately one day per week.
Travel: 30% of the time

Contract Type: Full Time

Kidde is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of fire safety products. Each day, we work to expand upon our legacy of innovation, providing advanced solutions to protect people and property from fire and related hazards. By building upon our combined experience and expertise, we provide residential and commercial customers with advanced solutions and services to protect people and property in a wide range of applications, all around the globe.

Purpose of the Role

To lead and grow the UK Retail business by driving new customer acquisition, expanding existing customer relationships, and delivering sustainable revenue and profit growth. The Retail Sales Director is accountable for the overall commercial performance of the retail channel, including sales growth, customer development, market share expansion, forecasting accuracy, and team performance. The role requires strong commercial leadership, disciplined execution, and ownership of results while building a high-performing, accountable sales culture.

Key Responsibilities

Business Growth & Customer Acquisition

• Own retail channel revenue, profit and market share performance.
• Win new customers and expand distribution across key retail channels.
• Develop and grow strategic customer relationships to deliver sustainable growth.
• Lead commercial negotiations and execute growth strategies that increase market penetration and profitability.

Customer & Account Leadership

• Develop and execute customer growth plans with key retail partners.
• Maximise revenue, profitability, customer retention and share of wallet.
• Identify and execute opportunities for range expansion, promotions and new product introductions.

Sales Leadership

• Lead, coach and develop a high-performing sales team.
• Create a culture of ownership, accountability and execution.
• Set clear objectives and hold the team accountable for delivering results.

Commercial Planning & Execution

• Own the sales forecast and demand planning process.
• Partner with Operations and Supply Chain to ensure forecast accuracy, inventory optimisation and customer service excellence.

Experience – Essential

• Proven success leading retail sales teams and delivering revenue growth.
• Demonstrated track record of winning new business and growing strategic accounts.
• Experience owning revenue, profit and margin performance.
• Strong commercial negotiation, customer management and leadership capability.
• Experience within a consumer products, FMCG, retail or manufacturing environment.
• Fire safety, electrical products or adjacent category experience highly desirable

Success Measures

• Delivery of revenue, profit and market share targets.
• New customer acquisition and distribution gains.
• Growth and retention of existing customers.
• Sales team engagement and performance.
• Forecast accuracy and execution excellence.

We offer excellent development opportunities, a competitive salary and exceptional benefits including the following:

• Be part of a globally respected brand under Kidde Global Solutions.
• Competitive salary package, incentives, and career development opportunities.
• Company vehicle or allowance
• Hybrid/flexible working arrangements
• Laptop and smartphone
• Career progression opportunities

Your journey with us

We always aim to provide a fair and valuable recruitment process for everyone. If selected, you will follow the next stages:

• Initial call with our sourcing/recruitment team
• Interview with the Hiring Manager
• Interview with EMEA General Manager

Our commitment to you

As an employer of choice, our greatest assets are the expertise, creativity, and passion of our employees. We strive to provide a great place to work that attracts, develops, and retains the best talent, promotes employee engagement, fosters teamwork, and drives innovation for the benefit of our customers. We aim to create an environment where you feel that you belong, with diversity and inclusion as the engine to growth and innovation. We develop and deploy best-in-class programs and practices, providing enriching career opportunities, listening to employee feedback, and always challenging ourselves to do better. The values that guide us are respect, integrity, inclusion, innovation, and excellence.

We're excited for you to join us and make a difference.