Trade Marketing & Distribution Manager

Gulbahar Tobacco International Fze; Dubai; On-site; AED 240,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading tobacco company in Dubai is seeking a Trade Marketing & Distribution Manager to enhance market reach and brand visibility. This role involves designing effective Route-to-Market strategies, optimizing distributor setups, and ensuring product compliance across diverse channels. The ideal candidate has over 7 years of experience in trade marketing or distribution management, ideally in the tobacco industry. Proficient communication and negotiation skills are essential for success in this position.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in Trade Marketing or Distribution Management; tobacco industry experience preferred.
• Strong skills in pricing structures and trade spend management.
• Fluent in English; knowledge of additional languages is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Implement Route to Market strategies tailored for each market.
• Analyze and optimize distributor setups.
• Build GTI’s Trade Marketing Toolkit across markets.

Skills

Trade marketing execution

Commercial acumen

Communication skills

Negotiation skills

Relationship building

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or Commercial Management

Job description

Position : Trade Marketing & Distribution Manager.

Location : Jebel Ali Freezone, Dubai, UAE.

Reports to : Director of Global Sales & Commercial Growth.

Travel : Frequent regional travel required.

About the Role :

Are you an expert in trade marketing and distribution with a knack for designing smart Route-to-Market strategies? At GTI, you’ll lead the charge in expanding our market reach and elevating brand visibility across diverse channels. Your deep commercial insight and hands-on approach will ensure our products are available, visible, and competitively positioned in each market.

What You Will Do : Route-to-Market

• Assess, design, and implement Route to Market (RTM) strategies tailored to each market’s regulatory, commercial, and logistical context.
• Analyze and optimize existing distributor setups, suggesting alternative coverage models when needed.
• Identify white space and design commercial approaches to expand GTI’s availability and reach.
• Lead market visits and trade audits to validate distributor execution and provide structured feedback.

Trade Marketing & Visibility :

• Build and deploy GTI’s Trade Marketing Toolkit across priority markets covering product visibility, shelf standards, and brand guidelines.
• Collaborate with distributors and internal teams to align on channel-specific execution plans, including merchandising, POSM deployment, and campaign activations.
• Conduct regular in-field audits to monitor compliance with GTI’s merchandising and planogram guidelines.
• Define visibility metrics per channel and track them against target execution KPIs.

Pricing, Trade Support & Commercial Control :

• Design and manage price structures that capture the value chain while respecting trade margins and tax frameworks.
• Monitor price compliance across markets and flag deviation risks.
• Develop, roll out, and evaluate trade support programs (e.g., incentive schemes, rebates, activations) in collaboration with Distributors.
• Support annual distributor negotiations and define execution clauses for new partnerships.

Distribution KPIs & Performance Tracking :

• Define and track in-market distribution KPIs, including product availability, visibility standards, route-to-market coverage, trade support deployment, stock coverage & freshness.
• Build reporting templates with support from the Demand Analyst to review monthly performance per market/distributor.
• Monitor competitor presence, pricing, and activities using structured retail intelligence and distributor feedback.

Forecasting Support & Cross-functional Collaboration :

• Collaborate with the Demand Planning Analyst to feed market-level intelligence and performance insights into forecast assumptions.
• Contribute to the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) cycle by validating distributor pipeline, promotional plans, and field realities.
• Align with Supply Chain, Sales, and Finance to maintain visibility across execution, inventory, and cost management.
• Participate in the development of new market entry plans, advising on trade set-up, coverage potential, and resource needs.

Required Skills To Be Successful :

• Deep understanding of trade marketing execution and distribution frameworks, ideally across multiple emerging markets and Duty Free channel.
• Strong commercial acumen with experience designing pricing structures and managing trade spend.
• Proven ability to develop and enforce price compliance and execution standards.
• Capable of building KPIs and measuring trade performance through dashboards and field insights.
• Hands-on approach with the ability to work across structured and unstructured distributor environments.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.

What We’re Looking For :

• 7+ years in Trade Marketing, Distribution Management, or RTM execution — tobacco industry experience preferred.
• Strong commercial acumen with proven pricing and trade spend management skills.
• Ability to enforce price compliance and trade execution standards.
• Expertise in KPI development and trade performance measurement.
• Hands-on, proactive approach in distributor environments, structured and unstructured.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship management skills.
• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or Commercial Management.
• Fluent English; additional languages a plus.