National Account Manager

The National Account Manager, Albertson’s and Western Grocery leads the sales strategy and corresponding execution of activities to build value for both the customer and High Liner Foods. This role is the primary point of contact for High Liner Foods and the customer base and has a deep understanding of the unique and common challenges confronting the customer, and how High Liner Foods can help solve these problems and build a better seafood business. The hallmarks of success will include mutual trust, profitable sales growth and High Liner Foods’ share of purchase.

• Deliver profitable sales by developing and executing sales strategies that deliver profitable growth for Albertson’s/Western grocery customers and High Liner Foods, incorporating an effective approach to grow digital or online sales.
• Know and understand the customer, including their strategy, key people, priorities, processes and systems. Stay abreast of changes in these impact areas as they happen and become an expert user of assigned customer’s systems and processes. Become a customer expert that can anticipate and articulate customer needs and be an accurate and effective voice of the customer in internal matters.
• Master the customer’s systems intended for suppliers to manage its business, including generating essential reports, managing order and logistics challenges and providing necessary ad hoc support for key decision-makers at Albertson’s and Western Grocery customers.  
• Leverage High Liner Foods capabilities to create the right customer experience, by understanding and working with support functions and colleagues at High Liner Foods that will maximize the positive impact on our customer relationship.  
• Build mutual trust with our customer and create value as a consultative partner to build a better business by challenging the status quo and identifying opportunities to better reach our mutually beneficial goal of selling more sustainable seafood, profitably.  
• Be the primary conduit for bidirectional communication between the customer and High Liner Foods. This role will make sales presentations, conduct business reviews, participate in joint business planning, contribute to sales forecasts, and communicate day-to-day details relevant to optimizing the business relationship.
• Manage the broker partner relationship within this geographic territory including scorecarding, trade management and retail management initiatives.
• Analyze data, including category, market, financial and internal sales data, to determine relevance and apply learnings to create insights and value in the customer relationship. Apply this learning to create value, minimize risk, formulate recommendations, make good decisions, and ultimately, drive sales.

Must haves:

• Bachelors’ degree or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of direct sales experience with Albertson’s Corporate and divisions preferred
• 2+ years of experience in food-related businesses; experience in fresh or frozen protein businesses and/or seafood industry experience preferred
• Demonstrated expertise in forecasting and knowledge of perishable supply chains and the retail business dynamics
• Strong business/financial acumen
• Western US location – SoCal or Phoenix preferred
• 50% business travel to customer/broker locations 
• Strong track record of innovation execution
• Ability to effectively collaborate with all levels in an organization
• Strong proficiency in technology, including email, MS Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word); ability to effectively adapt to new systems
• Motivated self-starter comfortable working from home or the office
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Demonstrated learning agility