Key Account Manager

Company Overview:
The company is a Japanese company with more than 200 years of history. It has two divisions: Food for human consumption and pet food. In Japan, they have established itself as a leader in the pet food industry, thus also becoming a leader in sales. Thanks to the growth that the company has had in recent years, it became the No.1 brand of pet food in Japan and is also expanding internationally to make pets and their owners around the world happy.

Objective, Roles, and Responsibilities:

In this position, you will assume complete responsibility for the Pet Specialist channel for their operation in the UK. You will have full autonomy to grow this channel from challenger brand to a household name. You will manage the biggest European Pet Specialist retailer and grow their brand’s market share and market penetration.

Your regular duties will include:

1. Supporting the Head of UK to deliver the Volume, Net Sales & Gross Profit annual targets across all PS customers.
2. Developing, negotiating, and executing the annual joint business plans and promotional program.
3. Engaging with key customer counterparts to develop, align and execute promotions, activations, and sales strategies to deliver against targets.
4. Supporting the Demand Planning process, focusing on baseline forecasting and promotional uplifts to deliver against internal and customer supply chain KPIs.
5. Working with marketing, trade marketing, and category stakeholders to develop, sell-in, and execute against strategies and tactics.
6. Securing new listings and increasing distribution to aid in achieving goals for their priority brand portfolio.
7. Ensuring they are the partner of choice for all our customer stakeholders.
8. Holding yourself and your peers accountable to always living company values.
9. Building and owning customer relationships - demonstrating deep understanding of the needs of their customers at a strategic level and building into short-, medium- and long-term strategies.
10. Updating and managing weekly sales reports to review performance and create action plans if required.
11. Actively demonstrating teamwork internally and externally.
12. Able to take on additional responsibility as required by the business.

Skills Required:

A varied set of contemporary skill sets across core National Account Management; Marketing, Supply-Chain, Inventory Management, and Business Development.
• Communication and influencing – can present and persuade in both written and verbal forms to internal and external stakeholders.
• Cross-functional team working – can work as part of a wider team to achieve shared company goals.
• Commercial acumen - has a clear understanding of the impact of actions on volume, revenue, and profit.
• Can develop the business with range extensions, NPD, and new listings.
• Creative – can brief agencies on artwork projects.
• Is proactive, self-motivated, flexible, and adaptable.
• Has the ability to work effectively and maintain resilience in a fast-paced challenging environment.
• Planning, project management, and organizational skills – ability to develop and maintain reports, spreadsheets, and presentations to meet the company and customer objectives.
• Nuanced understanding of international cultural working ways.