Associate Director, Sales Planning

TITLE: Associate Director, Sales Planning, Natural & Snacking Cheese

DEPARTMENT: Business Unit Sales

REPORTS TO: Senior Director, Omnichannel Sales Planning & Operations

Lactalis Heritage Dairy is currently seeking candidates to join our team in Chicago!

Lactalis Group, the world leader in dairy, is a family-owned business with more than 85,000 pragmatic and ambitious professionals worldwide, committed to providing healthy and delicious dairy products that bring people together every day. At Lactalis, our core values of AMBITION, ENGAGEMENT, and SIMPLICITY are at the heart of everything we do.

If you’re looking for a unique experience with a company that offers strong brands, professional expertise, and a dynamic work environment that champions entrepreneurial spirit, hands-on responsibility, and real opportunity for career development, we want to hear from you!

Lactalis Heritage Dairy: inviting you to share with us your STORY, your PASSION, and your EXPERTISE.

From yourPASSION to ours

This critical role has responsibility for executing the business unit's (BU) strategic agenda with field sales teams in order to maximize impact with our customers. The Sales Planning Associate Director is the expert on the customer execution of the natural cheese & snacking cheese category sales strategies and voice of field sales within the BU. This position collaborates cross-functionally with marketing, finance, demand planning, and supply chain to ensure delivery of targets. Main responsibilities include but are not limited to driving forecast accuracy, trade efficiency, distribution recommendations, new item sell in, merchandising strategy execution, and sales process improvements to help drive profitable revenue growth.

From yourEXPERTISE to ours

Key responsibilities for this position include:

• Lead all annual sales planning activities for the Natural cheese & Snacking cheese categories
• Translate the business unit brand vision and strategy into clearly articulated category fundamentals
• Partner with field sales teams to develop and execute robust proposals, combining brand strategies with customer strategies
• Develop strong cross functional relationships with category marketing, demand planning, supply chain, revenue management, finance, and most importantly field sales teams to deliver targets
• Act as the main liaison between the business unit and the field sales teams to ensure strong communication and alignment between the two functions. Represent the needs of the field when interacting cross functionally within the BU
• Own communication routines with sales teams (often involving 100+ participants) to highlight BU priorities and changes to brand strategies and tactics. Ensure the strategies at executed accordingly to plan at a customer level.
• Understand and apply category analytics to deliver key insights and business recommendations on merchandising, assortment, pricing, and promotion
• Deliver sales forecasting accuracy in partnership with demand, supply, and field sales through monthly demand forecasting routines and identification of key volume drivers
• Develop comprehensive understanding of commercialization process and track the progress of new item commercialization against pre-specified launch dates to hit customer resets. Support field sales teams with new item sell-in activities at retailers.
• Analyze competitive landscape to help the maintain an optimal go to market strategy and react dynamically to competitive threats
• Manage day-to-day activities of a Sales Planning Analyst/Sr. Analyst reporting directly to the role

From yourSTORY to ours

Qualified applicants will contribute the following:

• Bachelor’s degree; business administration, finance, or related field. Marketing/sales concentration preferred.
• 5+ years of experience in sales, category management or related field
• Previous experience in the CPG industry and strong understanding of the US retail landscape; preferred
• Excellent analytic and problem-solving capabilities
• Minimum 2 years of experience using syndicated / panel data
• Minimum 2 years of people management experience
• Strong verbal, written, and interpersonal communications skills
• Outstanding organizational and project management skills
• Ability to work across functional teams, handle simultaneous projects, and deliver within agreed upon time frames
• Proficiency in Excel & Power Point required
• This position requires up to 25-40% travel, including both internal and customer meetings depending on business needs.

Lactalis Heritage Dairy is an equal employment opportunity employer. We will not discriminate against applicants with regard to any legally-recognized basis including, but not limited to: veteran status, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disabilities.