Associate Manager - Sales Finance, UFS North America

Background & Purpose of the Job:

Unilever Food Solutions (UFS) is the dedicated culinary foodservice business of Unilever which operates in more than 70 markets across the globe. The world of Food Solutions is a dynamic, entrepreneurial, and exciting environment with passionate professionals who work hard to carry out their common purpose of “freeing chefs to love what they do”. The UFS portfolio consists of world’s leading food brands like Hellmann’s and Knorr. Our customers range from restaurants and hotels through to workplaces, schools, and caterers – as well as the wholesalers and Cash & Carries who service the foodservice industry.

The Associate Manager - Sales Finance holds a pivotal role in empowering the Sales team to achieve ambitious growth targets, aimed at doubling the UFS NAM business within the year. Serving as a decisive figure in the selling process, the candidate assumes a critical position in shaping UFS's market presence. This entails strategic decision-making to prioritize channel investments effectively and pricing strategies for optimal market penetration, all while ensuring negotiation efficiency.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Strategic Business Partnership: Collaborate closely with the Food Solutions’ Customer Development (CD) team focusing on strategic key segments across North America and serve as a pivotal decision-maker in crafting and executing the channel investment strategy, ensuring alignment with the unique needs and growth opportunities of these key segments.

2. Drive Investment Decision Support: Provide robust decision support for CD partners, evaluating new business opportunities, competitive risks, and initiatives aimed at customer growth and profitability enhancement.

3. Performance Management and Accountability: Assist in setting CD targets and oversee in-year performance against these targets. Ensure accountability for trade spends across zones and channels.

4. Resource Allocation and Prioritization: Partner with CD to effectively manage and prioritize customer trade and marketing investments. Ensure optimal resource allocation while adhering to spending targets.

5. Profitability Analysis: Conduct detailed profitability analysis to enhance sales contribution through optimized investment levels and improved product mix.

6. Strategic Development: Collaborate on the development of channel and customer strategy. Drive visibility of category, customer, and channel performance.

7. Financial Acumen Enhancement: Enhance the financial acumen of Sales Managers in the channel through training sessions covering key topics such as ROI, customer profitability, and trade profitability.

8. Contract Management: Work with the sales team to ensure governance and audit compliance on customer contracts.

9. Process Improvement: Identify opportunities for process improvements and efficiency gains within CD finance. Actively contribute to the development and implementation of new financial tools and systems.

Who You Are & What You’ll Do:

The Associate Manager - Sales Finance must be an energetic and enthusiastic Sales team player that has a passion for driving business through actionable insights drawn out of deep analysis.

• You’re a born leader: You are quick to identify the root cause of the business issue, you are creative in proposing solutions, influential in selling your ideas and resilient in execution
• You love to win and have fun doing it: You enjoy rising to the occasion, the higher the stakes, the sharper your focus. You think of failures as lessons and believe in comeback stories. You believe in the value of continuous improvement and enjoy solving the challenges along the way. Helping our sales team identify the ideas that will help close the gap against our business targets.
• You’re a changemaker: You are a self-starter. You enjoy the challenge of connecting the dots that follow and have passion for shaping a legacy. You will focus on streamlining the processes in role and will be restless in understanding not just the what, but also the why behind our strategies.
• You’re a culture & change champion: You recognize the value in building teams, you have a passion for people and take pride in the role you play to build our collective performance.

What You’ll Need to Succeed:

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Finance, Marketing, or related area.
• 3 to 5 years of related experience in sales finance or business partnering.
• Knowledge of customer, data, and financial systems. Working knowledge of Salesforce and/or trade promotion management system a plus.
• Experience in food service industry preferred.
• High analytical power, coupled with ab