Director - Commercial Strategy

What Makes this a Great Opportunity

• Leadership/People Management: Lead a team, providing vision to team and aligning different teams to same strategy; ensuring right people are in the right roles to be successful
• Senior-Leader Exposure: Regular communication with, and presentation to, senior level audience, including North America and Global executive leadership teams
• Strategy Development: Opportunity to develop and implement route to market and distributor strategy; Build detailed understanding of current field resources (BSI and distributor), how they are goaled and incented with ability to shape go-forward methodology, including future depth, breadth, and structure of incremental field resources
• Negotiation: Visibility into distributor strategy/route to market negotiations
• Complex Problem-Solving: Opportunity to structure a clear process to address an ambiguous question/objective, and how to influence without authority
• Stakeholder Management: Positioned to influence and interact closely with every business function (Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, Legal) providing clear visibility to how broader groups need to work together effectively
• National Perspective: Develop understanding of market dynamics and drivers of sales plan across US
• Process Improvement: Opportunity to create the infrastructure for the field to work efficiently and effectively, by establishing processes and working with IT to develop tools that drive field effectiveness, bridging the gap between functionality and usability

Role Mission

This position will report to the Senior Director, Commercial Strategy, Planning, & Enablement with significant exposure to the Vice President, North America Strategy and Beam Suntory senior leaderhip.

This role will lead our commercial insights, strategy and strategic initiative execution inclusive of the following responsibilities:

Strategy Development:

• Develop route to market strategy for each market based on market’s long-term growth, commercial ambitions, and “One Beam Suntory Way” approach
• Guide development of channel level forecasts and develop supporting strategy that will inform executive leadership’s growth objectives
• Evaluate and develop recommendations to improve effectiveness of our market execution strategies
• Lead distributor contract design, negotiations, and ongoing management; leveraging key stakeholders across the Sales, Legal, and Finance teams
• Identify and develop sales structure, incentives, and sales planning elements, as required
• Develop storyboards and presentations for each of the above projects, adapting for varying levels within the organization (e.g., sales team vs. executive leadership)

Analysis & Insights:

• Identify drivers of our business, data-driven expectations for how they will change going forward, and implications on the business

• Lead/delegate ad-hoc analysis on brand, category, distribution, account, and market level performance to support strategic objectives and business goals
• Act as source of expertise for commercial best practices that align with BSI strategy (i.e. distributor management, sales planning, contract standards, etc.)

Program Management & Organizational Effectiveness:

• Evaluate the effectiveness of key strategic sales initiatives with regular reporting to senior leadership
• Identify, develop, and deploy enhancements and expansions of our sales resources
• Identify, develop, and execute opportunities to enhance broader sales effectiveness
• Support market leadership in evaluating and managing distributor performance

Stakeholder Management:

• Collaborate closely with Commercial Planning, Marketing, Finance and other cross functional counterparts to ensure quality of recommendations and successful implementations
• Support commercial leadership in the development of messaging and presentations for key internal  and external sales meetings

Leadership:

• Lead team of Managers and Sr. Analysts to deliver high quality analytics and executive level story telling around business performance, opportunities, and our strategic direction

Qualifications & Experience

• Education: Bachelors; MBA strongly preferred
• Experience: Minimum of 3 years of experience in a top tier management consulting firm, or corporate strategy role
• Industry Knowledge (Preferred): Understanding of the Three-Tier System, day to day activities of Distributor and Field, US route to market complexities, and specific market/distributor dynamics preferred
• Financial Acumen: Understanding of P&L and ROI basics
• Project/Process Management: Proven ability to manage projects from start to finish
• Presentation Effectiveness: Ability to translate insights into structured presentations that highlight key takeaways; Ability to present effectively to senior audiences
• Stakeholder Management: Ability to see situations and anticipate reactions from multiple stakeholders and perspectives, crafting communications and leading discussions in a thoughtful manner that has the appropriate detail for the audience/stakeholders
• Advanced Business Analytics: Ability to identify, analyze, and interpret trends in complex data set to inform decision making