Head of Sales, Retail

About the role

The Role:

Define and lead the Customer and Sales Strategy for the Wella Portfolio (Clairol, OPI, Sebastian, Nioxin, & Wella) in the Food, Drug, Mass, and Secondary channels to achieve the business ambition in both short and long term.

Deliver the annual operating plan (GS, NR, Profit) for the retail business by working in close collaboration with Trade Marketing, Brand Marketing, Supply Chain, Finance and other support functions to ensure all targets are met.

Engage our customers to drive short and long term growth in our categories and foster collaborative relationships for partnership. Owns the relationship with distribution partners.

Contribute actively to North America Sales & Education Leadership Team to define the role of the FDM & Secondary channels within North America and aid in delivering total market performance.

Key responsibilities

• Guides others in developing vision & strategy for the business as well as proper implementation plans to ensure excellent execution
• Coaches team members & cross functional partners using knowledge of market, channel, brand and category strategies across a broad customer base
• Ensures interaction between team, customer and all areas of Wella business to successfully implement brand/category strategies by key account
• Sets business objectives & operational targets to ensure efficient uses of all resources including Trade Funds, operational overheads and personnel to achieve common business plans
• Conducts proactive business reviews identifying issues/opportunities/actions
• Approves and critiques sales team plans for short, medium and long term activities ensuring alignment to brand support plans & key initiatives
• Coaches others in the uses of sales information tools to support negotiation skills, creating medium and long term win/win arrangements with Customers and team members both internally and externally
• Articulates and shapes financial impact of decisions
• Is able to network effectively with other functions and develops in others the ability to manage relationships
• Constantly adds value by developing and improving sales capabilities and key processes to improve performance, provide on the job training to sales team members, and attend sales calls to assist sell in
• Uses detailed data to identify plans for the sales function and service support from the entire organization
• Manages third party and/or direct reports effectively by keeping track of their performance and budgets / expenditures
• Develops and leads team culture focused on achievement, entrepreneurship, partnership and ownership
• Contributes to overall Retail Sales Organization associate engagement to establish it as an attractive business unit with passionate & talented associates

Qualifications

• IDEALLY a BA and/or MA in Business, Marketing or similar
• 10-15 years of relevant Sales experience within beauty or similar industry
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills effective across a large organization
• Analytical ability to understand the business trends and provide projections based on that insight
• Possesses the ability to think creatively to address new issues and identify business building ideas
• Ability to personally organize and plan effectively, as well as for the team being managed
• Ability to travel required
• Strong knowledge of sales function processes and cross-functional exposure to other areas of business operations