Trade Spend Analyst
Cloverdale Foods CoReports to Director of Accounting Job Summary: The Trade Spend Analyst is responsible for analyzing and reconciling customer promotional programs, navigating customer portals, identifying trends, and providing actionable insights to support decision-making processes. This role requires advanced Microsoft Excel skills, strong analytical abilities, attention to detail, and the capability to independently investigate and resolve discrepancies across multiple systems and data sources. The ideal candidate is comfortable collaborating with cross-functional teams, working with large datasets, identifying trends and exceptions, and communicating findings effectively with customers and internal teams. The Trade Spend Analyst serves as a key liaison among customers, Sales, Sales Support, and Accounting by providing visibility into customer account activity and trends. This position plays a key role in ensuring the accuracy and visibility of Cloverdale Foods Company's Trade Spend activity and supporting its timely resolution. Office Environment: 95% of the work is conducted in an office setting, may be in person or virtual. Involving time spent on computer research, project management, and communication with team members and stakeholders. Frequent participation in both in-person and virtual meetings, including project updates, strategy sessions, and presentations to management and stakeholders. Travel: <5% Occasional travel for training, trade events, meetings, conferences, etc. Schedule: Flexible schedule. Evenings, weekends, and holidays may be needed rarely based on operational requirements. Key Responsibilities: Utilize Microsoft Excel extensively to analyze Trade Spend data, track trends, evaluate effectiveness, ROI, and overall trade spend performance. Track, reconcile, and maintain records of customer programs, deductions, rebates, promotional agreements, disputes, and other customer-specific Trade Spend activity. Navigate customer portals and independently investigate discrepancies across systems and data sources to support timely resolution. Develop accurate forecasts and budgets for trade spend initiatives, ensuring alignment with company objectives and financial targets. Manage trade spend data sets, ensuring accuracy, completeness, and integrity for analysis purposes. Identify opportunities to improve reporting, automate repetitive processes, and enhance visibility into customer account activity and trends. Provide recommendations based on data analysis to optimize trade spend allocation and improve promotional strategies. Maintain sensitive and confidential financial and customer information with honesty and integrity. Other duties may be assigned. Qualifications : Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance, Economics, Data Analytics, or a related field preferred. Equivalent combinations of education and relevant experience will be considered. Two or more years of experience in trade spend analysis, preferably within the consumer goods industry, financial analysis, customer program administration, or related experience preferred. Experience within manufacturing, food manufacturing, retail, distribution, consumer packaged goods (CPG), or similar industries preferred. Experience working with high-volume or complex customer accounts strongly preferred. Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret complex data sets. Detail oriented with a commitment to accuracy and data integrity. Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel is required. Utilize Microsoft Excel extensively to analyze Trade Spend data, track trends, assess promotional effectiveness and return on investment, and evaluate overall trade spend performance. Experience with advanced formulas, dashboards, Power Query, data visualization, or process automation is preferred. Ability to organize, analyze, reconcile, and summarize information from multiple data sources into meaningful business insights. Strong verbal and written communication skills. A…