Business Development Manager - Lead Brands On-Premise - IL United States of America

Are you an individual with a strive to be the best? A brilliant partner who can influence, lead innovation & transformation across our Brands and Global Packaging footprint, then we have a great opportunity for you.

Job Description

ABOUT DIAGEO

With over 200 brands sold in nearly 180 countries, we’re the world’s leading premium drinks company. Every day, over 30,000 talented people come together at Diageo to create the magic behind our much-loved brands. Join us and you’ll collaborate, explore, and innovate. Challenge and be challenged. Together with passionate people from all over the world, you’ll build brands consumers love.

We value each other and celebrate different perspectives. In our inclusive culture, you’ll have the backing you need to test new ideas and learn from them. Harness your passion and desire to grow as you make your mark. Let’s unlock a brighter, more exciting future together.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Business Development (BD) Manager is the in-market category & brand expert that leads consumer & trade demand generation for our brands. This role will promote the growth of Diageo brands, along with distributor/broker partners, customers, and consumers. This role is a blend of sales coordination, local marketing execution and category/brand representation - collaborating with our sales teams at Diageo and within our distributor teams. The role works directly with the relevant Diageo brand and trade marketing personnel to develop and implement winning brand, customer, and portfolio plans tailored for their market.

This role is designed to be very visible and active in the market – spending a minimum of 70% of their working time with customers, distributor sales teams, marketing/activation agencies, event and sponsorship promoters, and local influencers. This role relies heavily for success on effective collaboration with other Diageo sales and marketing teams - to ideate, create, budget for, and enable the operational readiness of their plans, allowing the successful candidates to focus on building an in-market reputation and track record of demand generation that translates into performance measured through sales depletions and share growth.

Role and Responsibilities

1. Builds demand for our brands by locating, defining, and executing against the most important business/category opportunities in the market consistent with the category and brand plans developed for that market.
2. Has a strong, trusted business relationship with the most important customers in their market. Strengthens that relationship by regularly engaging with those customers to find mutually beneficial opportunities for growth.
3. Identifies new opportunities for brands to participate in a market by being close to distributor, agency and customer personnel and validating opportunities through consumer, category & customer insight.
4. Closely monitors standard brand performance metrics to ensure efforts are delivering against market/brand/customer expectations – course correcting where necessary.
5. Agrees category specific targets, timing and KPI’s for in market sales and agency partners – execution, merchandising, activation efforts, etc.
6. Locates potential business opportunities by contacting potential partners – cross promotional opportunities, sponsorship opportunities, media, or local influencer opportunities etc.
7. Inputs directly to the development (by brand/trade marketing teams) of local/in market category and channel plans for specific category and constituent brands.
8. Leads local category & associated brand education opportunities and coordinates learning plans with Diageo and third-party personnel – including the Diageo Academy learning agenda.
9. Protects Diageo by being an expert in our marketing code and living our code of conduct always.
10. Helps refine and evolve the business development role by observing and recommending positive enhancements to the role and how it works and how it can better engage with internal and external stakeholders.

ABOUT YOU

Preferred Experience, Skills and Education Requirements:

1. BA in business administration or a related field required.
2. 3 -5 years of sales & brand activation experience.
3. Existing or commitment to quickly complete WSET LI or equivalent education in Wines & Spirits.
4. Ongoing category specific learning – formal & informal learning – liquid, consumer, category insights.
5. Experience of beverage alcohol category and familiarity with On, Off and Non Premise channel landscape.
6. Track record of in market & customer engagement – wants and likes to spend time actively in trade – listening to customers, observing shoppers/consumers and turning insights into actions.
7. Category expertise – deep Diageo & competitor brand understanding.
8. Negotiation skills – can manage local negotiations, including sponsorship agreements.
9. Strong relationship building – based on transparency, empathy & trust.
10. Sales Analysis – knows how to read sales and demand creation metrics – knows when intervention is necessary.
11. Customer & consumer centric – understand customer motivations and knows how best to appeal to shoppers/consumers to the benefit of customers and Diageo.
12. Territory management – understands the BevAlc route to market and how to compliantly influence outcomes.
13. Deep market knowledge – channel, customer, and consumer.
14. Energy level – approachable and quick to engage with all partners – brings positive energy to customer, distributor and agency interactions.
15. Professionalism – polished but authentic – comfortable in public presentation situations.
16. Self-starter – self-motivated and pro-active.

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and listened to, is a crucial part of this.

We believe the most diverse and inclusive culture makes for a better business and a better world. We know that for our business to thrive and for Diageo to realize its ambition, we depend on having diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills and capabilities in each of the countries in which we operate and to reflect our broad consumer base.

Flexibility is key to success in our business and many of our staff work flexibly in many different ways, including part-time, compressed hours, flexible location. Please talk to us about what flexibility means to you and don’t let anything stop you from applying.

Diageo is an Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action employer and is subject to federal regulations pertaining to employment. Diageo does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, marital status, Protected veteran status, or any other basis prohibited under federal, state or local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the Company has facilities.