Sr Manager, Sales Planning (East Region)

Headquartered in Lakeville, Minn., Post Consumer Brands, a business unit of Post Holdings, Inc., is dedicated to providing people and their pets with delicious food choices for every taste and budget. The company's portfolio includes beloved brands such as Honey Bunches of Oats™, PEBBLES™, Grape-Nuts™ and Malt-O-Meal™ cereal and Peter Pan™ peanut butter, as well as Rachael Ray® Nutrish™, Kibbles 'n Bits™ and 9Lives™ dog and cat food. Post also provides private label solutions to customers in pet food, cereal, nut butters and granola. As a company committed to high standards of quality and to our values, we are driven by one idea: To make lives better by making delicious food accessible for all. For more information about our brands, visit www.postconsumerbrands.com and follow us on LinkedIn or Facebook for the latest news.

Post Consumer Brands corporate headquarters in Lakeville, Minnesota, is about 20 miles south of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Lakeville has all the benefits of smaller town living with access to everything a large metropolitan area has to offer. Join more than 400 team members collaborating on the two-building campus to help put breakfast on the tables of millions of consumers in North America. 

PCB is seeking a Sr Manager, Sales Planning East Region to join our Commercial Strategy and Execution (CS&E) team to support our Ready-to-Eat Cereal business and Customer Development Organization. The Sr Manager, Sales Planning acts as a sales strategist to the East Region Sales VPs and provides the entire customer selling teams with analytics, trade planning, and trade systems support to advance PCBs strategies. The successful candidate will actively participate in the creation of promotional programs / strategies and co-ordinate with headquarters teams and field sales groups to ensure successful execution.

Working Location: Hybrid OR Remote

This role is located at the Lakeville, MN Corporate office or Remote to East Region candidates.

Key Accountabilities

Act Like an Owner

• Work closely with cross-functional teams to devise strategies that meet PCB and customer sales targets. Participate in the development and implementation of integrated, joint business plans with East Region selling teams to achieve strategic objectives and effectively communicate brand initiatives.
  • Enable successful execution of innovation, customer resets, and promotional events by communicating sales requirements, timing, and quantities to cross-functional teams.
  • Monitors performance with agreed upon action plans (e.g., KPI tracking) and promotes an open feedback loop to identify opportunities to close any gaps.
• Consolidate and share insights regarding sales, promotion effectiveness, and merchandising results across internal stakeholders.
• Collaborate with the commercial team to create tools and capabilities that streamline the pre-planning process and validate inputs for customer plans. Work with the sales team to develop and refine sales plans. Offer insights into key drivers, risks, and opportunities, and represent the sales perspective on gap-closing initiatives.
• Serve as a liaison between sales, demand planning, and supply teams to monitor inventory levels and resolve product availability issues. Collaborate with supply and demand teams to address availability concerns, communicate updates to the sales team, and establish prioritization as needed.
• You have an entrepreneurial spirit. You are comfortable with ambiguity and are energized by the process of building and embedding projects within the CS&E organization to drive consistency in planning processes across sales, finance, and marketing.
• Work with sales and Revenue Management to deliver accurate brand planning and trade spending information in our trade planning system.
• Develop tools to continuously improve communication across the enterprise.
• Provide management with planning reports and analysis as necessary.

Be Bold & Solutions-Oriented

• Identify opportunities to drive sales volume via the 4P’s (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) for each customer including price-pack architecture, trade/promotional strategy, and distribution to identify opportunities for growth by Channel/Customer from syndicated data.
• Proactively seek out and present solutions to business opportunities.

Win as One

• Looking for a fierce competitor determined to win, work together as a team, have fun, and grow the PCB Way.
• Represent sales and voice of our customers in cross-functional teams.

Qualifications

• B.A. or B.S. Degree in Business Management, Marketing or related field, or equivalent combination of education and work experience. MBA preferred.
• Minimum 5-7 years of relevant industry experience in sales, account management, trade funding, category management, or other relevant experience.
• Experience working with East Region Customers in a sales, account management, trade marketing or sales planning capacity highly preferred.
• Ability to work in a team-oriented environment and provide support as needed.
• Capable of building working relationships to collaborate and influence multiple cross functional partners.
• Keen judgment and problem-solving skills with an ability to adapt and prioritize in a fast-changing work environment.
• Successful demonstration of analytical skills using various data sources (e.g., Nielsen, IRI, CPM, sales data.)
• Effective written and presentation skills with an aptitude to simplify complex subject matter.
• Must be proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (i.e., Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook), Tableau, etc.