Director, Sales Strategy & Execution

About the role

This Director of Sales Strategy & Execution is a key commercial leader responsible for developing and operationalizing the sales strategy that drives Jack Link’s growth across all U.S. retail channels. This leader owns the MAPS strategy – Merchandising, Assortment, Pricing, and Shelving – to ensure Jack Link’s protein snacks win at shelf, drive category growth, and deliver superior results for retail partners.

Responsibilities

• Develop the annual sales strategy that integrates MAPS fundamentals – optimizing assortment, pricing, shelving, and merchandising to drive category and brand growth.
• Lead cross-functional commercial planning with Marketing, RGM, Category Management, Finance, and Supply Chain to align on channel strategies, pricing architecture, trade investment, and new item launch plans.
• Translate consumer, shopper, and category insights into customer-specific growth strategies across convenience, mass, grocery, club, eCommerce, and emerging channels.
• Identify white-space opportunities, distribution gaps, and innovation platforms that drive incremental growth.
• Establish standardized processes and toolkits for MAPS recommendations, sales playbooks, distribution priorities, pricing guidelines, and merchandising execution expectations.
• Oversee the development of customer-ready stories leveraging category insights to support shelf optimization, display activation, pricing recommendations, and assortment enhancements.
• Ensure flawless execution of distribution gains, new item launches, promotional windows, shelf resets, planograms, and seasonal merchandising opportunities.
• Work closely with customer teams to ensure consistent application of MAPS strategies across all retail partners.
• Build and manage tools and scorecards that track performance across MAPS dimensions: distribution, shelf placement, velocity, pricing competitiveness, display execution, and promotional ROI.
• Lead analysis of category trends, promotional lift, price elasticity, competitor activity, and retailer-specific performance to inform strategic adjustments.
• Partner with RGM to optimize the price-pack architecture (PPA), evaluate trade spend efficiency, and shape long-term pricing and promotional strategy.
• Partner with Category Management to build compelling retailer-specific category growth stories that highlight Jack Link’s leadership in assortment, pricing, merchandising, and shelving.
• Collaborate with Marketing and Innovation teams to ensure brand plans, campaigns, and new products translate into winning retail strategies.
• Work with Sales Planning and Supply Chain to manage execution readiness, service levels, and inventory availability to support customer plans.
• Lead and develop a high-performing Sales Strategy & Execution team, including analysts, planners, and commercial strategy managers.
• Create a high-performance culture centered on accountability, collaboration, speed, and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Finance, or related field.
• MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• 8+ years of CPG commercial experience (Sales Strategy, Category Management, RGM, Sales Leadership, or Commercial Planning).
• Demonstrated expertise in MAPS principles – Merchandising, Assortment, Pricing, and Shelving – within major CPG retailers.
• Strong analytical skills with deep experience using syndicated data (Nielsen/IRI/Circana), retailer POS systems, and pricing tools.
• Proven track record of developing sales strategies and driving execution in fast-paced, growth-oriented CPG environments.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and cross-functional influence skills.
• Experience in snacks, meat snacks, protein snacks, or other high-velocity, impulse-driven center-store categories preferred.
• Experience working in a privately held, entrepreneurial organization preferred.