Head of Commercial & Merchandising Optimisation

Head of Commercial & Merchandising Optimisation

Permanent Contract

Full remote

Candidates need to be located near an existing Sysco site

Sysco is the global leader in selling, marketing, and distributing food products to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and many others. The group’s range of products also includes equipment and supplies for the foodservice and hospitality industries. With more than 71,000 employees, the company operates 333 distribution facilities worldwide and serves more than 700,000 customer locations.

Today, the company is launching a new strategic plan: the Partnership Growth Management. The PGM is the evolution of Sysco’s Category Management processes and represents a new approach to how Sysco partners with suppliers in all categories across their business.

In this context, the company is creating new roles that will allow Sysco to better manage its sales and margins. This newly created role will focus on leading a team of International Optimisation Managers, responsible for driving commercial improvement for Sysco. You will identify the biggest margin opportunities and deploy suitable resources for better buying/selling and solving category assortment gap opportunities. You will also take the lead to ensure incremental improvements to the margins are achieved (cost of goods, commercial sales performance).

You will report to the International Merchandising Director (Europe).

The key responsibilities include:

Driving change

• Act as deputy to the Director of International Merchandising.
• Track success over time and build reporting and calculating methodologies to measure success versus market to report on contribution to leadership and wider teams.
• Be the overall lead “optimiser/improver” to drive change, constructively challenge in-country teams and lead from the center to influence success.
• Challenge the norm to introduce new strategies, processes, and business practices to ensure improvements in COGs versus market benchmarks.

Lead the portfolio of strategy & profit projects

• Manage and lead the team of Commercial & Merchandising Optimisation Managers to motivate and drive the portfolio of strategy and profit improvement initiatives underway across both merchandising and commercial functions.
• Ensure the effective work of the team, prioritising work, and resources where best appropriate, balancing both Merchandising and Commercial needs, and the individual Sysco country Operational Companies' needs and priorities, to achieve the best overall outcome for Sysco as a whole.
• Achieve incremental improvements in triple-net COGs and GP through targeted project work, better buying, better selling, Sysco brand conversion.

Internal collaboration & coordination

• Both lead and work with, within and for stakeholder teams and functions across Sysco’s markets to influence change and drive actions and improvements in ways of working, effectiveness, and efficiency to drive margin and growth.
• Work in partnership with the Head of Projects & Insights as part of the greater team to ensure the analytics from that team are used effectively to drive improvements, and workstreams carried out by the team are project managed effectively as one partner team.
• Find sources of best practice from across Sysco and elsewhere to improve ways of working and drive alignment across each market.

The core skills for this role are the following:

• An extensive experience in a similar senior position, ideally within a Merchandising or Commercial function and within an FMCG or food service environment.
• Strong commercial acumen by influencing positive change (to improve revenue).
• Ability to review and interpret data trends.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.

This role is a critical position within Sysco’s “Partnership Growth Management” project across the International markets. In this new position, you will work in a dynamic and international environment. You will be confident in driving complex workstreams and able to quickly identify key opportunities, turning these into deliverable and realistic project plans. Regarding the great importance of the PGM Plan, the prospects of professional development are vast.

If you are interested in this opportunity, feel free to submit your resume!