Account Controller

Birds Eye are looking for a motivated and passionate individual to join our Sales team to drive the customer agenda and lead a team of Commercial Managers. The individual will be accountable for a broad portfolio of products including both brand and retailer own brand as well as the execution of the customer business plan in order to hit and exceed annual targets. The right candidate will have solid trading experience and a history of working with Top 4 retailers. To manage the business interface with our customer(s) via the team in order to ‘Create Profitable Change’ at the Point of Purchase or anywhere within the entire Supply Chain of the customer(s) to achieve individual customer category targets that are consistent with S & M strategies, customer needs and company budgets.

Responsibilities

• Build partnerships with external customers to develop, manage & execute Joint Business Plans – to achieve Sales, Profit & Share targets. You will have full account P&L ownership.
• Build partnerships with internal customers to deliver the Birds Eye/Aunt Bessies and Goodfella’s account and trading plan.
• Utilise trade spend & online trading levers efficiently to deliver the plan.
• Develop & execute promotional plans with your team, that best meet the needs of yours & your customer’s targets.
• Own the day to day commercial relationship with the Senior Buying Manager in the customer and this will also include some exposure to Category Directors and above.
• Work with internal & external customers to secure best in class visibility of our Brands.
• Identify ways in which our products can be sold more effectively online.
• Develop and deliver bespoke execution plans that best support key Birds Eye/ Aunt Bessies and Goodfellas business priorities e.g. Marketing/Category initiatives + New Product Development.
• Lead the building of longer-term plans for the customer and be prepared to articulate this back clearly & concisely to the business.
• Develop the capability of your team through regular coaching, training and mentorship as well as having regular 121’s to review progress.
• Identification, development & roll-out of commercial best practice within department to ensure commercial returns are maximised and maximum levels of control are delivered by the sales team both internally and externally.
• Identification of new processes, systems, way of working or skills training required to deliver best practice.
• Ownership & communication of sales reporting & forecasting to ensure each.
• Ownership of the account BRM working closely with your team.

Qualifications

Essential

• A complete understanding of the FMCG retail & wholesale industry in the UK.
• +10 years of progressive involvement in sales account management at a national level.
• Strong customer relationship management skills, possessing the ability & confidence to sell commercial propositions in line with company and customer needs.
• Resilience & excellent negotiation skills in order to achieve mutually acceptable outcomes in often very demanding circumstances.
• Experience of formulating and reviewing detailed business plans.
• A highly organised individual with good planning skills and the ability to manage projects across different categories both internal and external via different departmental functions.
• An advanced level of written and oral communication skills.
• A high degree of analytical skill is necessary in order to develop meaningful business plans; carry out financial analysis; carry out evaluation in order to provide solid management and decision-making information.

Desirable

• Highly developed cross-functional team leader with the ability to take holistic decisions based on a wider business perspective.
• Preferably has experience of more than 1 direct report and some prior experience in coaching and developing teams.
• Experience of both branded and own label business.
• Trained in GAP Negotiation.