Sales Strategy Manager

Position Purpose: 

Reporting to the Senior Sales Strategy Manager on the Sales Strategy and Operations Team, the Sales Strategy Manager will play a critical role in driving profitable revenue growth across all Lindt USA platforms, including Key Franchises, Seasons, Innovations and Emerging Brands for Target, Drug, C-Store, Value, and Specialty. This position ensures seamless alignment between Brand strategy and Sales execution, rapidly and effectively bringing products and activations to market. Success in this role hinges on ensuring all initiatives are fully supported, understood by Sales, welcomed by Retailers, and embraced by Consumers. The Sales Strategy Manager will lead the development and deployment of comprehensive sales strategies and plans, collaborating cross-functionally with Marketing, New Product Development & Packaging, Sales, Category Management, RGM and Retail Partners. This role will drive the successful commercialization of product innovations and holistic customer plans, optimizing both sales and marketing efforts to meet Lindt’s targets. Leveraging deep expertise in commercialization and working closely with Sales, the Sales Strategy Manager will develop and execute strategies that ensure business objectives are met, while delivering impactful results and driving efficiency across all company touchpoints. 

Essential Job Functions & Responsibilities: 

• Develop and execute holistic launch plans to maximize market potential, ensuring channel strategies and distribution goals are met, while providing feedback to Brand teams to address potential market barriers. 

• Partner with Sales teams across all channels to align customer and retailer needs with business objectives, translating insights into growth-driving strategies. 

• Collaborate with Marketing to translate their strategies into comprehensive, channel-specific sales plans, leveraging all activation levers, while providing timely sales insights to help shape and refine Marketing plans for maximum effectiveness. 

• Lead internal ideation and approval processes for customer-specific items and platforms, ensuring alignment with brand and category goals. 

• Strategically manage the Opportunity Identification (OP ID) process to evaluate and prioritize sales opportunities, driving internal alignment and decision-making. 

• Facilitate key meetings (Deployment, NSMM, Annual Wholesale) to ensure cross-functional collaboration and seamless execution. 

• Communicate brand initiatives and performance updates through Sales Webinars, providing strategic direction to field and broader sales teams. 

• Communicate CORE Team feedback with Shopper Marketing and Sales Teams to deliver comprehensive display strategies, ensuring they drive business objectives and meet customer needs. 

• Manage off-cycle sales requests, translating them into actionable opportunities to enhance agility and responsiveness. 

• Drive cross-functional collaboration by delivering strategic insights and fostering data-driven discussions to optimize go-to-market execution. 

• Actively contribute to the MAGIC process (monthly innovation meeting cycle) including monthly IPR, ICAM, Key Franchise Commercial Plan Alignment, pre-MAGIC, MAGIC, and SPR meetings 

Qualifications & Requirements: 

Experience: 

• Minimum of 5 years Key Account, Shopper Marketing or Category Management experience required. Additional Marketing experience a plus 

• Intermediate to advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) 

• Multi-tasker; Organized and dependable; can establish priorities and meet deadlines; works with a sense of urgency 

• Ability to weigh all relevant aspects of a situation and make sound, well-reasoned decisions; (considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one) 

Skills & Knowledge:  

• Strong analytic skills and detail oriented; comprehension in reporting (creating & managing reports) 

• Capability to influence & collaborate across teams and hierarchies 

• Positive, motivated and professional attitude, good people skills and a passion for collaboration 

• Be a problem identifier and problem solver, recommend action and/or take appropriate action 

• Flexible and able to adapt working in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment 

Education: 

• Bachelor's degree in Business or equivalent required; Master’s degree preferred 

Other Requirements: 

15% travel requirement 

New England geography preferred