Sales Strategy & Customer Marketing Leader

Job Description: Sales Strategy Customer Marketing Leader_ T2 Position Summary The Sales Strategy Customer Marketing Leader is responsible for developing and executing customer-centric growth strategies that drive category, brand, and customer performance. This role serves as the critical link between Marketing and Sales, translating consumer, shopper, and innovation strategies into actionable customer plans that deliver business growth. The successful candidate will lead annual planning processes, customer marketing initiatives, innovation commercialization, and shopper activation programs while partnering closely with Sales, Marketing, Category Leadership, Finance, Operations, and external agency partners. This individual must thrive in a fast-paced environment, demonstrate exceptional cross-functional leadership, and influence stakeholders across all levels of the organization. Key Responsibilities Innovation Strategy Commercialization Partner with Marketing, Sales, Supply Chain, and Category teams to develop customer-specific innovation plans. Support the customer activation of innovation initiatives from concept through launch. Build compelling customer selling stories that drive distribution and incremental growth. Monitor innovation performance and recommend optimization strategies to achieve objectives. Ensure innovation priorities are incorporated into customer plans and annual business planning processes. Shopper Consumer Marketing Programs Develop and execute integrated shopper and consumer activation programs that drive awareness, trial, conversion, and loyalty. Translate consumer insights into customer-specific activation strategies that deliver measurable business results. Lead development of promotional programs, display initiatives, seasonal campaigns, and omnichannel customer marketing plans. Evaluate program effectiveness through ROI analysis and post-event assessments, identifying opportunities for continuous improvement. Collaborate with Marketing to ensure alignment between national brand campaigns and customer execution strategies. Annual Planning Commercial Strategy Lead cross-functional annual planning processes, ensuring alignment across functions with corporate growth priorities. Support key planning milestones, including innovation planning, demand forecasting, promotional planning, and investment allocation. Key planning milestones (Mission Control (Future year innovation planning), NPM (National Sales Meeting), RTS (Ready to Sell material for sales), Lift Off (Sales plan readiness). Identify risks and opportunities and provide strategic recommendations to drive business performance. Marketing Sales Integration Act as the primary liaison between Marketing and Sales teams, ensuring strategic alignment and flawless execution of business priorities. Communicate customer needs, market trends, and competitive insights to Marketing partners. Translate brand and category strategies into customer-specific execution plans. Facilitate collaboration across functions to ensure timely decision-making and effective implementation of initiatives. Influence stakeholders to achieve alignment on business priorities and growth opportunities. Agency External Partner Management Lead relationships with external agency partners, ensuring delivery of best-in-class activation and marketing programs. Manage agency briefs, timelines, budgets, and performance expectations. Ensure all agency-developed programs align with brand strategies, customer requirements, and business objectives. Co ordinate the creation of all POS, Toolkits, Display requirements across innovation and Shopper programs. Foster strong collaborative partnerships that drive innovation and continuous improvement. Cross-Functional Leadership Build and maintain strong cross functional relationships across Sales, Marketing, Finance, Category Leadership, Supply Chain, Strategic Revenue Growth Management, and Operations. Lead project teams and coordinate resources …

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