Sales Planning and Operations Director - Fully Remote 🔥
Connecting People, Plants & Planet to Create Healing
Gaia Herbs takes pride in fostering a collaborative workplace where inspired sessions are the norm, and pitching in to support team success is required. We actively seek out team players who value mission-driven work and love bringing purpose to what we do every day.
Gaia Herbs is growing, and as the leading Herbal Supplement company, we feel an ever-increasing responsibility to contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable economy. This is why our status as a Certified B Corporation is so important as we continue building exceptional teams who create great products, all while being great stewards of our farm and our planet.
At Gaia Herbs, we not only value our employees for who they are, but for who they can become. Because every Gaian is a part of our collective success, we see employee development as more than an investment in the future of our company. It's an investment in the future of our families, our communities, and our world.
What we offer:
Medical Dental and Vision – eligible at the first of the month after you start!
Health savings account
Wellness discounts on health insurance
PTO, sick leave, paid holidays
401(k) - we match 100% of your contribution up to 3%
Annual Incentive Plan (Bonus)
Stock Options
Volunteer time off
Voting time off
Book clubs
Recognition Programs
Birthday honey from the Gaian farm bees
Gaia swag
Yoga Classes
When Onsite -
Gourmet Nutritious lunches cooked by our own company chef using Gaia’s herbs, veggies and local organic meats. Yum!
Healthy vending machines in breakrooms
Free farmer’s market during season from Gaia’s own 350 acre Western North Carolina Farm. Best Veggies Ever!
Job Summary - Fully Remote
The Director of Sales Planning & Operations leads the Sales Planning function at Gaia Herbs. This is an integral sales role with responsibility for developing and executing best in class strategies and market approaches to maximize business results, while increasing market share and growth. This position leads the development of strategic trade plans aligned with marketing objectives, oversees category insights and shopper marketing initiatives, and leads the customer service and sales operations teams. The Director of Sales Planning & Operations has accountability for the development and execution of Gaia’s commercial strategies including pricing/promo strategy, shelving/assortment strategy, distribution, special packs, and trade terms. This position also owns the annual planning process, sales tool development, and reporting optimization and KPI tracking.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Leads development and execution of the retail and health care practitioner wholesale sales strategies (including everyday pricing strategies, promotional and category plans, and shopper marketing initiatives).
- Drives incremental growth and profitability for Gaia and our partners.
- Serves as the primary liaison between the sales and marketing functions for all of sales strategy
- Ensures ongoing alignment between marketing and sales on how to deliver against customer needs and objectives (as well as executing key corporate initiatives).
- Develops, implements, and maintains effective pricing and commercial strategies and policies.
- Manages everything related to trade spend (ROI, effectiveness, management tools and resources); Understand and optimize spending by channel and customer.
- Works closely with the FP&A to maximize trade effectiveness and go-to-market trade strategies; builds action plans to optimize Gaia’s trade spending basis insights and trade understanding.
- Partners with demand planning and supply chain to ensure accurate forecast and high service levels to the customers; acts as sales lead for S&OP and forecasting.
- Works with the Sales teams as a leader in the customer planning process and manages sales volume and trade budget objectives for all customers.
- Achieves agreed upon net sales targets for new innovation items; works with marketing to provide targets and to ensure sales has the marketing/shopper support needed to achieve new item goal; oversees the new item sales plans with the sales teams.
- Develops and maintains enhanced sales reporting, tools and analytics; works with sales team members in the field to assess tool needs.
- Designs and develops sales KPI tracking and reporting.
- Oversees development and maintenance of all volume, sales reporting and forecasting tools as well as execution tracking tools.
- Masters data management in 1World Sync, IX-One, WERCs; ERP and CRM ownership.
- Manages the development and execution of both long range and annual customer plans to achieve company objectives; designs and delivers effective presentations and business reviews.
- Owns all sales-related capabilities in the internal ERP system related to order entry, credit requests and customer promotions (as well as vendor portal entry/management for key accounts).
- Leads category insights and analytics (promotional analysis, distribution voids, shelf placement and pricing optimization); holds ownership and delivery of compelling category growth story.
- Effectively leads a team of managers, associates and specialists by providing guidance and prioritization with a lens on consistent career development and pathing discussions.
- Builds and leverages relationships with senior level cross functional counterparts.
- Delivers performance KPIs for customer service function.
- Oversees and helps develop customer service team, tools, and processes to offer best in class customer experience for all channels of business (including D2C).
Supervises Category Insights Manager, Trade Marketing Associate, Sales Operations Manager, Customer Service Manager, FP&A Lead, and their respective organizations.
Qualifications
Education and/or Experience
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree
- 10+ years of sales experience with progressively responsible roles as sales leader, preferably in natural and organic industry and in a high growth company
- Proven track record of developing new business
- Experience in FDM channel strongly desired
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:
- Strong team leadership skills and ability to bring people together
- Dynamic, inspiring and driven to succeed, in accordance with principles of conscious leadership
- Highly strategic, with a strong level of comfort with numbers
- High level of personal accountability and ability to create an accountability-driven culture within the team
- Excellent organizational skills for juggling multiple high priority responsibilities
- Outstanding attention to detail
- Excellent presentation, writing, and communication skills with the ability to negotiate strategic initiatives
- Excellent interpersonal skills to support building and maintaining strong customer and employee relationships
PHYSICAL DEMANDS
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear and walk. The employee occasionally uses hands to finger, handles, or feels objects, tools, or controls and reaches with hands and arms. Specific vision abilities required by this job include the ability to be able to view a computer screen. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
This position will be located in the Southeastern part of the US (NC, GA, TN, SC). The primary work environment, however, will be a home office, where noise level and other hazards are at the control of the employee. It is expected that the incumbent in this role will have a regular presence in our Asheville location (i.e. once a month/once every 6 weeks). Travel beyond travel to Asheville will be less than 20%.
The above statements are meant to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals assigned to this position. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and skills required of personnel so classified.
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