National Account Manager – Waitrose, M&S, Booths and Gifting

Whyteandmackayltd; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading spirits company is seeking a National Account Manager to manage key relationships with Waitrose, M&S, and Booths. This role involves driving brand visibility, developing joint business plans, and managing financial processes. The ideal candidate will have FMCG sales experience and strong negotiation skills, with a passion for the spirits industry. Additional perks include competitive salary, bonus package, and 35 days annual leave. Apply by the closing date to explore this opportunity further.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Bonus package

Life assurance

Excellent product allowance

35 days annual leave

Qualifications

• Previous experience working with national accounts.
• Comfortable working with sales monitoring systems.
• Understanding of UK Off Trade & Convenience Market.

Responsibilities

• Manage relationships with key retailers like Waitrose and M&S.
• Develop joint business plans and implement pricing strategies.
• Forecast customer demand and manage financial processes.

Skills

FMCG sales experience

Account Management experience

Strong relationship building skills

Negotiation skills

Ability to interpret data

Proven track record with P&L

Education

Valid UK driving license

Tools

Microsoft Excel

Nielsen Answer on Demand

Microsoft PowerPoint

Job description

Job Title: National Account Manager – Waitrose, M&S, Booths and Gifting

Function: Commercial

Department: Off Trade

Location: Home Based – with the ability to travel to customer sites, head office meetings and to attend Sales Team Meetings

Job Level: 5

Role Reports to: Business Unit Controller

Contract: Permanent

Date vacancy will close: 5pm, 16th January 2026.

Job Purpose:

The National Account Manager for Waitrose, M&S, Booths and Gifting is responsible for driving our distribution, visibility and activation of our brands within these retailers.

Our partnership with Waitrose is of huge importance to Whyte and Mackay and you will be responsible for maintaining and driving this forward. You will manage all aspects of this customer relationship, working to maximise our joint growth in Spirits.

You’ll also be responsible for driving performance in M&S, Booths and our gifting partners, allowing you additional opportunities to exercise your creative flair and commercial acumen.

The above will require you to build strong cross functional relationships across both customer and internally, leading the agenda to achieve our objectives.

You will become the expert in Whisky & Spirits and use this knowledge to excite and inspire our customers.

Key Responsibility Areas:

Financial

• Lead in the delivery of hitting budgeted levels of profit for your customer base through the implementation of robust and creative joint business plans.

• Maximise our return on investment by reviewing customer performance and take action accordingly.

• Implement pricing and promotional strategy consistent with customer/channel guidelines.

Creating a Winning Joint Business Plan

• Deliver a plan that executes our brand activation plan and separates us from the competition.

• Ensure the appropriate range is available in your customer portfolio on the appropriate brands.

• Maximise opportunities for distribution and visibility growth.

• Lead the category agenda with appropriate market and data insight.

• Managing Internal & External Relationships

• Establish relationships and work with cross functional teams, internal and external, to achieve your objectives.

• Lead the internal team to achieve the desired results across your customer base.

• Establish, deepen and broaden the customer contact strategy and facilitate wider company engagement with customer contacts. Focus specifically on building relationships with key internal and external stakeholders.

Managing Internal Processes

• Accurately forecast the demand for the customer and continually strive to improve your forecasting metrics.

• Liaise with internal supply chain function to ensure ongoing availability targets are achieved.

• Manage the financial processes for the account – invoices, debit notes, audit claims, accruals etc.

• Manage Customer Marketing process to effectively feed into Customer Brand Planning timelines and deliver timely insight that will deliver tangible results.

Persuasive Selling

• Plan, establish and understand needs, set objectives that cascade and are linked to both customer and business objectives.

• Articulate benefits in order to secure results.

• Accurately anticipate internal and external objections.

• Flex style and adapt behaviour in order to gain results.

Measures of Success in the delivered across the organisation next 12 months:

• Strengthen customer relationships and broaden internal engagement across cross-functional teams.

• Deliver budgeted profit targets across all accounts through robust joint business plans.

• Increase distribution and visibility across Waitrose, M&S, Booths, and gifting partners, with measurable growth in key SKUs.

• Implement and track promotional and pricing strategies aligned with channel guidelines.

• Develop and execute a 12-month activation plan that drives brand engagement and category leadership.

• Improve forecasting accuracy and ensure availability targets are consistently met through supply chain coordination.

Skills and experience that will help you be a success.

• Previous FMCG sales experience.

• Previous experience working in a Sales team in an Account Management role.

• Experience working on one of the Top Grocery 6 retail accounts or experience of managing national or large regional accounts.

• You will have a valid full, clean UK driving licence.

• Understanding of UK Off Trade & Convenience Market.

• Ability to interpret data and provide actionable insight.

• Understands P&L and financial evaluation tools.

• Comfortable working with systems to monitor sales and produce reports etc. The customer system is Nielsen Answer on Demand, training on all systems will be provided.

• Knowledge and experience of negotiating and delivering a successful Joint Business Plan

• Strong relationship building and influencing skills with the ability to adapt style

• Negotiation skills – understanding of how to structure and prepare a negotiation, trade conditionally and influence to gain commitment

• The ability to make sound decisions based on an understanding and interpretation of financial information

• The ability to develop, implement and optimise sound business decisions on a short- and long-term view

• Proven track record of delivering and exceeding key P&L metrics

• Highly numerate as well as possessing a good working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications particularly Excel and PowerPoint.

Personal Attributes

• Tenacious and driven to achieve results and your objectives

• Vibrant and engaging

• Builds trust

• Passion for spirits and the drinks industry

• Entrepreneurial – able to deliver game changing results with a high level of commercial acumen

We believe that everyone has the potential for growth in our roles! You may feel you don't tick every box for this role,but if you believe you have relevant experiences that could help you succeed we'd much rather you apply rather than rule yourself out based on any self-limiting beliefs!

Why join us:

We offer a competitive salary, bonus package, life assurance, competitive pension, excellent product allowance, 35 days annual leave, plus enhanced family friendly policies. Our Rewards & Benefits page has further information.

Our application process:

If you like what you’ve read and want to explore this opportunity further, please apply before the closing date listed at the top of the advert.

Our team read each and every application, therefore you'll hear back from us in due course.

Candidate guidance on the use of AI in the application and screening process can be found on our career site.

Should you require any adjustments to our recruitment process to help you be at your best then please contact us at [e-mail] and we'll do what we can to support.