Direct Sales Manager- Insurance and Financial

YuMe (part of the Maxx Group) is an award-winning global toy brand that dreams of bringing people together through imagination, fun, and entertainment. YuMe, inspired by the word meaning “to dream” in Japanese, is recognized for its highly stylized plush, surprise capsules, and other toy lines, which have gained strong momentum in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia since 2018. The YuMe brand designates the highest quality soft and hard toys featuring popular entertainment brands such as Stranger Things, Squid Games, Disney, Wizarding World, DC Comics, Power Rangers, Transformers, Among Us, JuJutsu Kaisen, Spy x Family and many others.

Opportunity: YuMe Toys has an immediate requirement for an organized, detail-oriented, and experienced Sales Manager to join our team in London. Must be able to work on-site four days per week - Monday to Thursday. This role will focus on managing and creating relationships with key accounts and driving sustainable merchandising revenue growth in all distribution channels in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) region.

The Sales Manager helps define YuMe's collectible toys retail sales growth initiatives, executes seasonal sales with buyers, and activates key retail strategies that align with our strategic marketing, sales, and brand portfolio initiatives. The Sales Manager will act as a brand ambassador, key influencer, and change agent with retailers and distributors in order to achieve annual sales and growth targets. This tremendous opportunity to step into a leadership role collaborating with local and remote creative and account management teams, providing guidance and ideas to develop consumer products/retail programs for leading entertainment licenses, media properties, and retail partners.

Key Responsibilities:

• Responsible for negotiating and securing retail sales at all channels of distribution.
• Developing and maintaining retail buyer relationships to achieve retail sell-in targets.
• P&L Responsibility, including budgeting and forecasting for targeted categories and retail programs.
• Collaborate on developing retail initiatives, including category and product development, identification of hot licensees.
• Develop relationships with retailers and maintaining existing business relationships to achieve product sell-in and sell-through.
• Identify and develop new business strategies and categories outside of traditional toy categories with an entrepreneurial approach to new business growth.
• Conduct and coordinate sales presentations with retailers & licensors.
• Attend and represent the company at key trade shows, maintaining up-to-date knowledge of industry trends and developments.
• Strategy and business planning: Define the strategic plan and priorities to grow the retail business.
• Build annual budgets, retail sales, and promotional activities plan.
• Communicate effectively in written, visual, and interactive formats.
• Identify new trends to maintain our position as an industry leader and innovator.

Requirements:

• A bachelor's degree in business, advertising, marketing, or similar field is preferred.
• Minimum eight years’ experience in sales, ideally in the toy industry, with a proven track record of meeting and exceeding sales targets.
• High-level, existing relationships with mass, specialty, e-commerce, and buyers at all channels of European retail distribution.
• A high-powered sales/marketing-oriented individual with highly developed relationship-building, presentation, and influencing skills, coupled with excellent leadership and managerial skills.
• Strong knowledge of the retail industry and retail operations, including planogramming and vendorisation.
• Understanding of product development, product ranges, and key categories.
• Capable of analysing market trends and identifying new sales opportunities and hot entertainment and gaming licenses.
• Proven skills in managing multiple local sales teams and effective interpersonal skills and ability to develop relationships with personnel at all levels, both internally and externally.
• Fluent in Microsoft Office Suite - Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; able to create, understand, and interpret financial data in Excel, including sales forecasts and budgets.
• Proficient in European languages (e.g. German, French, Italian, Spanish, etc.) is advantageous.
• Frequent travel is required.

Application Process: Please submit your resume and a cover letter outlining why you are a good fit for this position. We will only respond to candidates we have an interest in interviewing. We thank all others in advance. All responses will be kept strictly confidential. YuMe is an equal opportunity employer that employs individuals based on job-related qualifications regardless of race, religion, sex, national origin, age, disabilities, or any basis prohibited by law.