Director Sales and Marketing Job Listing at Safeway in Pleasanton, CA

Food & Beverage, Retail

Safeway Inc., a Fortune 100 Company, is one of the largest food and drug retailers in North America with 1,600+ stores. The Safeway family of brands includes some of the most prominent brands in food retailing, with a growing base of loyal shoppers. Thanks to the professionalism, diversity, spirit and friendliness of our people, we have locations across the U.S. and Canada.

Diversity is fundamental at Safeway. We foster an inclusive working environment where the different strengths and perspectives of each employee is both recognized and valued. We believe that building successful relationships with our customers and our communities is only possible through the diversity of our people. And a diverse workforce leads to better teamwork and creative thinking, as well as mutual understanding and respect.

Lucerne Foods, Inc. has an opening for a Director of Sales and Marketing. This position is located in Pleasanton, California.

Position Description:
Lucerne Foods Inc. (Brands Division) requires a highly experienced individual as the Director of Sales and Marketing. This individual will lead all retail sales and marketing initiatives for Lucerne’s branded yogurt and sour cream portfolio with full PL responsibilities. As such, this individual will have a significant impact on the company’s ability to achieve its brand, market share, and profit objectives. This individual will also help to identify and secure new Brands and License opportunities and to develop a product portfolio capable of achieving Lucerne’s overall business objectives.

Key Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
•This individual will work collaboratively with the management team to conceive and implement the sales and marketing strategies and related initiatives for Lucerne providing an integrated, best practice approach to achieving Lucerne’s desired Brand and market growth objectives.
•Provide cross-functional leadership communicating with all levels of the organization to ensure plans and initiatives are clearly understood and maintained.
•Lead overall Brands Division cross-functional planning process in establishing annual business goals and budgets
•Drive overall marketing needs for Lucerne’s licensed brands including brand communications, new product ideation and development, and promotional support addressing competitive threats to the company’s market share and product profitability goals.
•Formulate and implement sales and key account plans to achieve revenue and profitability objectives. This should include revenue, distribution, promotional effectiveness and in-store merchandising goals.
•Acquire new customers by planning and executing the business development process from prospect identification through customer presentation/engagement to customer negotiation, proposal development and deal closure.
•Manage strategic relationships with Licensed Partners to ensure continued sales growth maximizing Lucerne opportunities including the identification and securing of new licensed partners that are highly recognized and trusted with consumers, have ability to develop multi-category portfolio to drive scale in execution, and are aligned with Lucerne/Safeway needs and objectives.
•Manage all activities related to new product launches (planning, goal setting, messaging, timing, launch activities, KPI monitoring, etc.) and develop innovative selling, pricing, marketing and promotional strategies to commercialize new products.
•Accelerate the product development process and pipeline to introduce viable new products and product line extensions.
•Build and manage a world-class sales and marketing team capable of carrying out related strategies, plans and initiatives.
•Evaluate and develop staff skills in accordance with ACT principals and in conjunction with Lucerne’s needs and future growth opportunities.

Qualifications:
•Minimum education for this position is a Bachelors degree, ideally in marketing.
•MBA or related graduate degree preferred.
•The most appropriate level of experience for this position is 9 to 12 years plus the education listed above
•10+ years experience as a commercially driven marketer and innovator within the CPG arena. Experience serving the food industry is highly desirable
•Experience in establishing a marketing vision/strategy and the resulting operation objectives to meet customer needs and maximize revenue and profitability.
•Demonstrated ability to partner and maintain strong strategic alliances with both internal and external stakeholders and multi-functional organizations.
•Able to think and execute at both the strategic and tactical level while evaluating and recalibrating as needed in response to market conditions
•Specific experience managing national and regional food brokers. Experience working directly with key Western U.S. grocers and wholesalers.
•Business development expertise including managing the customer pipeline, customer prospecting, qualification, presentation, persuasion and negotiation.
•Account management expertise including category management, financial management and account administration. Direct experience utilizing data form Nielsen or IRI data bases to construct compelling selling story to specific retailers.
•Experience partnering, forging, and maintaining strong strategic alliances with both internal and external partners and organizations that support customer acquisition and maintenance objectives.
•Excellent leadership abilities as demonstrated in both entrepreneurial and larger organizational environments.
•Demonstrated ability and successful track record as an innovator conceiving and launching new products or businesses, as well as, running existing brands or businesses.
•Brand marketing expertise including brand strategy, positioning, and communications, packaging innovation, pricing and distribution.
•New product development expertise including market identification, consumer insights, concept development, RD management, and new product launch management.
•Ability to recruit and effectively onboard successful committed team players
•Ability to inspire passion and excitement around the vision, goals, and objectives and to build a sense of urgency to get results.

Respond to: Interested candidates are encouraged to submit a resume by visiting www.CareersAtSafeway.com.

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER