Senior Manager, Routes Management

What makes this a great opportunity?

Job Title: Senior Manager, Routes Management (Chicago, USA)
What makes this a great opportunity?
•    Ability to drive impact and shape strategy, process, and tools from the ground up
•    Highly cross-functional role with exposure to senior leadership and Commercial and Digital & Technology teams
•    Core to the success of Suntory Global Spirits' commercial strategy
•    Potential to advance within Suntory Global Spirits across multiple functions

Role Responsibilities

Position Overview

The Senior Manager, Routes Management will report to the Director, Commercial Planning, with significant cross-functional interaction with Sales, Digital & Technology, Market Development and Commercialization. This role owns the strategy, process, and execution of route management — the lists of accounts each sales team is responsible for — ensuring routes are accurate, aligned to commercial strategy, and effectively supported by digital tools.

•    Own route strategy, periodically reviewing our approach to accounts included on routes, analyzing how the current approach is performing, and making recommendations on how to continuously improve approach
•    Provide insight and thought leadership on how to drive greater commercial impact within key accounts
•    Shape how sales teams are held accountable for driving outcomes in key accounts
•    Lead the route refresh process (conducted each half) to ensure updates are completed accurately, on time, and in line with strategy
•    Communicate with the full sales organization, including leading office hours and training sessions, to ensure sales teams are well informed of processes and equipped to drive impact through their routes
•    Partner with Digital & Technology to build and maintain workflows supporting route management, including tools in Anaplan, and ensure routes are accurate and correctly reflected across downstream systems (PowerBI, Salesforce, GoSpotCheck)
•    Serve as a resource to sales teams to ensure their routes are accurate and showing up correctly across tools, partnering closely with Digital & Technology
•    Inform incentive design in partnership with the broader Commercial Planning team

Outcomes/Success Criteria
•    Stronger financial and executional results in Key Accounts
•    Route lists are accurate, current, and aligned to commercial strategy at each refresh cycle
•    Sales teams are well-informed of route changes and equipped to act on them, with minimal disruption during rollout
•    Route management tools and workflows function reliably and require minimal manual troubleshooting
•    Strong, trusted working relationships with Sales and Digital & Technology stakeholders

Qualifications

•    Bachelor's degree preferred
•    4-8 years' experience in Commercial Strategy, Sales, or a similar function
•    Alcohol beverage industry experience preferred
•    Highly organized, able to prioritize competing work streams, and capable of driving long-term change (e.g., building new tools, improving efficiency)
•    Must be highly proficient in Excel and PowerPoint, and analytically focused – ability to clean, process, and integrate large and disparate data sets is a plus
•    Anaplan and/or PowerBI experience required
•    Strong interpersonal and relationship-building skills; comfortable in constant communication with sales teams and cross-functional stakeholders
•    Travel 5%
•    Hybrid role based in Chicago; in-office 3 days/week expected

Competencies – Organizational, Role Specific & Leadership

Organizational Competencies
•    Entrepreneurial Approach
•    Creating Innovative Solutions
•    Beating the Competition…. Together
Role Specific Competencies
•    Strategic thinker and planner
•    Commercial perspective and breadth of experience
•    Strong communicator and collaborator
•    Attention to detail while managing toward big-picture priorities

Salary Range - The salary range for this role, is $130,000 - 150,000k, along with an annual bonus, 401K match, profit sharing, and medical and wellness benefits. The salary range is commensurate with the candidate’s location, experience, and skillset.