Field Sales Director - North

Diageo was created in 1997 but its business is built on the principles and foundations laid years before by giants of the industry – Arthur Guinness, John Walker, Elizabeth Cumming and many more. Today, Diageo is a world class leader in beverage alcohol, producing an outstanding collection of over 200 brands and owning the top two largest spirit brands in the world, Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff and 20 of the world’s top 100 spirit brands. Its portfolio also includes Crown Royal, J&B, Buchanan’s and Windsor Whiskies, Cîroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo has built a strong platform for growth – through investment in its own brands, and by acquisition to broaden the geographical footprint and category depth and range. The company’s strong local business units are well positioned to win in increasingly competitive and fast-paced environments. Diageo’s portfolio is well-diversified across price-tiers, enabling it to participate where consumer opportunity is greatest, and to capture shifts in consumer preference.

Diageo’s culture is built and maintained by the five values that underpin its business and guide how Diageo works. At Diageo, employees are passionate about its customers and consumers and want to be the best. They give each other the freedom to succeed and value each other. Employees work hard so they can be proud of what they do and how they do it. While Diageo moves at pace, constantly evolving and improving, its values remain consistent. Diageo wants employees to live these values every day, everywhere so that Diageo can be proud of what they do and be the best that they can be.

More about Diageo is available at its web site: https://www.diageo.com/

Role Dimensions

Responsible for driving the integration of field and technical teams, establishing culture and performance execution for the North or South Division. Through a team of 6/7 commercial managers, you will lead a multifunctional sales, activation, and technical team to deliver executional success by providing the strategic direction across total territory, using market knowledge and category data to build plans to win share and deliver exponential on-trade P&L growth. Leadership accountability will encompass both the direct management of commercial managers but also the MFST which supports your divisional team, including the operations team, finance and customer marketing.

This is a role that will challenge and grow your ability to set the plan, communicate it to your collaborators and manage the execution and delivery through others. This team is responsible for a fast moving, dynamic and agile customer segment of independent operators and regional managed groups that make up a multi million pound business unit for Diageo.

Top Accountabilities

• Accountable for overall divisional execution, value share & NSV outcomes.
• Your team will be tasked to deliver execution metrics in month, quarter and year. Input metrics will include retaining and winning contracted accounts, winning menu, availability, serve, house pour and serve, execution of brand campaigns and digital sign ups for their territory.
• Develop best in class route to market and key customer relationships with the relevant regional sales directors and partners in target RTMs, making Diageo the supplier of choice.
• Responsible for successfully driving how Diageo brands show up in the independent free trade through a multifunctional team.
• Set clear priorities for success and communicate these consistently across the Key Accounts team and through key partners (Customer Marketing, Category, Wholesale team).
• Management of sales, activation and technical team, including 3rd party sales/activation individuals assigned to the area allocated to you.
• Apply commercial expertise to build investment plans for small /medium regional groups (in-direct customers) that create positive return on investment and drive executional standards in outlet
• Motivate, coach and develop field teams to deliver outstanding performance and develop the potential and capability of each member, in order to deliver against key metrics
• Create and foster an inclusive and diverse team culture that drives engagement and inspires and shapes the future of the channel

Ideal Experiences / Qualifications / capabilities

• Experienced commercial leader, with solid track record of managing P&L and consistently delivering results.
• Strong understanding of commercial relationships, contract negotiations and joint business plans
• A strong track record of winning with customers and delivering growth in market share and NSV through category selling and business partnership
• A passion for the on-trade and the ability to build and use strong relationships with business partners internally and externally
• Track record of building and leading high performing/highly engaged field sales teams
• Demonstrates hunger to deliver groundbreaking performance and the ability to lead teams to deliver exceptional execution
• Has a growth mindset and seek creative solutions to dynamic business challenges
• Able to manage cross functional reports, with varying functional expertise and development needs.
• Able to manage senior collaborators to drive the outcomes required within your region
• Able to translate data and insight into action and outcomes, either to accelerate an opportunity or diagnose and fix an issue

Celebrating our inclusive and diverse culture is core to Diageo’s purpose of “celebrating life every day everywhere”. This purpose is inclusive in nature, as it values everybody irrespective of background, disability, religion, gender identity, sexuality or ethnicity.

We know that for our team to thrive and to realize our ambition, we depend on having diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills and capabilities in each of the 180 countries in which we operate and to reflect our broad consumer base.

Flexibility is key to success in our business, and many of our staff work flexibly in many ways, including part-time, compressed hours, flexible location.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process and to perform essential job functions.

Don’t let anything stop you from applying!