Head of Sales, US Strategic Grocery Foods

Overview

Lead Unilever Foods' strategic grocery business across major US grocery customers, driving volume, share, profit and customer partnership objectives across an approximately $800M Foods portfolio representing nearly 70% of the Foods business.

What you'll do

• Lead Unilever Foods' strategic grocery business across key customers including Kroger, Albertsons, Ahold Delhaize and other major grocery retailers, representing approximately 70% of Foods volume.
• Develop and execute customer strategies that deliver sustainable, profitable growth through Joint Business Planning, strategic negotiations, and customer-specific growth initiatives.
• Partner closely with Marketing, Customer Strategy & Planning (CSP), Category Management, Shopper Insights, Supply Chain, Finance, and Revenue Growth Management teams to build and deliver winning customer plans.
• Establish a scalable operating model across multiple customers, balancing enterprise priorities with unique customer needs and opportunities.
• Drive portfolio growth through category leadership, omnichannel execution, promotional effectiveness, assortment strategy, and revenue growth management.
• Lead senior-level customer relationships and top-to-top engagement strategies, building strategic partnerships that create long-term mutual value.
• Manage customer P&L performance and investment decisions to optimize growth, profitability, and return on investment.
• Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing organization while building future leadership capability across the team.
• Champion Unilever's purpose-driven growth agenda by delivering winning outcomes for customers, shoppers, consumers, and the business.
• Develop and deliver joint business planning activities with customers, constantly optimizing the P&L, creating value and finding truly sustainable mutual ground through active JBP management.
• Develop and execute a scalable, multi-customer growth agenda across strategic grocery retailers.
• Create resource allocation, investment, and portfolio strategies that maximize profitable growth while establishing common commercial disciplines that can be deployed across diverse customers and market conditions.
• Attract, motivate, develop and retain talent cross functionally through clarity, connectivity and celebration of success.
• Successfully navigate and influence senior leadership at the customer independently, effectively getting to resolution.
• Balance enterprise priorities with customer-specific business needs while leading a complex, matrixed organization across multiple strategic customers.
• Build alignment across Sales, CSP, Marketing, Category Management, Supply Chain, Finance, and Revenue Growth Management to deliver winning outcomes.
• Develop a winning team for current and future performance.

What you'll need

• Bachelor's degree required.
• Minimum 15 years of progressive CPG commercial leadership experience, including significant Strategic Grocery and/or large-scale customer leadership responsibility.
• Proven leadership of large, complex customer portfolios with direct accountability for sales, profit, trade investment, and customer P&L performance.
• Deep experience leading strategic partnerships with major grocery customers such as Kroger, Albertsons, Ahold Delhaize, Publix, Wakefern, Meijer, or comparable retailers.
• Demonstrated success developing and executing Joint Business Plans, pricing and promotion strategies, revenue growth management initiatives, and omnichannel growth plans.
• Strong enterprise and matrix leadership skills with a track record of influencing across Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, Category Management, Shopper Insights, and Sales organizations.
• Proven ability to build and develop high-performing teams while leading through organizational change and business transformation.
• Strong financial acumen with deep understanding of customer P&L levers including pricing, promotion, assortment, distribution, omnichannel strategy, and investment allocation.
• Experience leading large organizations and developing leadership talent pipelines.
• Strong executive presence with demonstrated success influencing senior customer and enterprise stakeholders.

Nice to have

• MBA.

Details

• Remote, USA.
• Leads a team of approximately 35 associates across customer teams, category management, and supply chain support functions.
• Responsibility across 8 strategic grocery customers.
• Reports to SVP, Foods Sales, US.
• Pay range $221,100 to $386,925; bonus eligible; LTI eligible.