Our client:

Lotus Bakeries began in the village of Lembeke in 1932 and is now active worldwide in the indulgent and natural snacking segment with the Lotus, Lotus Biscoff®, Dinosaurus, Peijnenburg, Annas, Nākd, TREK, BEAR and Kiddylicious brands, among others. Lotus Bakeries, with headquarters in Belgium, is a dynamic, internationally oriented company with production facilities in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, South Africa and the US, and twenty-one own sales organisations in Europe, America and Asia. Lotus Bakeries also works with commercial partners in approximately fifty countries worldwide. Lotus Bakeries has more than 2,000 employees. By maintaining a healthy balance between tradition and innovation, the Lotus brand indulges consumers with a unique range of high-quality, tasty products. The secret of Lotus Biscoff® lies in the cookie’s unique flavour, distinctive design and delightful crispiness. The unique caramelised cookie flavour has meanwhile also been incorporated into a spread and ice cream. A wide range of cake specialties and waffles are furthermore offered under the Lotus brand name. Koninklijke Peijnenburg is the market leader for gingerbread in the Netherlands and Annas is a typical Swedish speciality of pepparkakor biscuits: thin, crunchy biscuits flavoured with ginger and cinnamon. Under the Nākd, TREK and BEAR brands, Lotus Bakeries offers tasty snacks, manufactured from all-natural, unprocessed ingredients, with no added sugar. Kiddylicious focusses on healthy snacking for babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers. In 2019 the Group achieved a turnover of EUR 613 million. The shares of Lotus Bakeries are listed on Euronext Brussels. The majority of the shares are owned by the Boone and Stevens family.

For all positions based in Switzerland, Nigel Wright works with their SECO licensed Swiss partner Accurity GmbH to ensure that candidate applications are handled in accordance with Swiss law. Please submit applications and direct any enquires directly to Nigel Wright.

The job:

In order to expand our worldwide position within healthy snacking Lotus Bakeries wants to strengthen its’ International Sales team based in Zug (Switzerland) with an Account Manager.
Your mission is to initiate & stimulate the growth of Natural Foods (Nakd, Trek, Bear, Kiddylicious) through commercial partners in different markets. You are responsible for developing, supporting and implementing the sales & Route-to-Market strategy and realizing our ambitious growth targets. Your focus area will be to guide our distributors in unlocking (new) business within both Retail channel, Specialty Health stores and Impulse/convenience channels.

Key result areas:

• You develop a sales and marketing plan for your countries and define the optimal Route-to-Market strategy (in cooperation with local commercial partner). You implement our repeatable activation model in order to drive listings & enhance distribution/rotation in our key outlets;
• You bring your existing commercial partners to a new level by translating in-depth knowledge (market dynamics, competitive set, etc) into a strategy to further grow the business locally;
• You analyze market data (Nielsen/IRI) of relevant categories in order to build effective customer selling stories;
• You use insights from other markets to help and support our commercial partner in making and excellently executing sales and marketing plans;
• You conduct business reviews with partners frequently and you follow up regular reporting;
• You define the optimal pricing of our products in your countries, based on pricing guidelines, on value chain proposal and competitive set;
• You map possible new countries and opportunities and use the Partner Selection Model to analyze and screen (new) partners and advice, when necessary, to change partner;
• You look for new partners in (new business) countries where we currently have no commercial partner;
• You report to the International Sales Manager.

The profile:

• You combine an Academic background with +/- 3 years of experience in Sales and/or Category Management in FMCG.
• A knowledge/experience of international business would be appreciated.
• You’re willing to travel up to +/- 50% of your time.
• Ideally you have some experience with Healthy Snacking products. Affinity is an absolute must.
• Strong inter-cultural intelligence - you easily get things done due to high level of empathy of other cultures, religions, values etc.
• You have strong analytical capabilities.
• People describe you as energetic, result driven with focus on the execution.
• You have an entrepreneurial spirit (start from scratch) and are ambitious (top sport mentality, continuously raise the bar setting new stretching targets & creating new opportunities).
• You’re an absolute team player, but are independent strong as well (self-starting ability).
• You think and act as an owner (entrepreneur) with pragmatics and a sense of urgency.
• You can speak & write fluently in English.
• You’re eager to spend most of your time in your markets to support your commercial partners.