Senior Director, Sales Strategy & Planning

About Square Roots

Square Roots is the technology leader in indoor farming. We create meaningful jobs in modern farming, empowering a new generation of leaders in agriculture. With production farms in Grand Rapids, MI, Kenosha, WI, Springfield, OH and Shepherdsville, KY (with more to come in the future). Square Roots is on a mission to responsibly bring our locally grown food to people in cities around the world, all year round.

The way we operate our business and operate our farms is better for local communities. Everyone on the Square Roots team—from farmers to engineers, commercial experts to operations specialists—is supported, connected, and empowered to do their best work to help Square Roots achieve its goals as a company. 

About the Role

The Senior Director Sales Strategy & Planning provides leadership and guidance for all aspects of sales planning by developing strategies to drive maximum achievement of sales, volume, and profit targets across all channels and customers. This individual will also lead demand forecasting for the organization, collaborating closely with Operations and Farming to align supply with demand across our farm locations.  Additionally, this thought leader will take a leadership role in developing our channel strategy and support engagement with new strategic partners, including new customers,distributors, and farm partners. This individual will deliver revenue planning, demand planning, trade and slotting allocations, distribution target assignment and any other major customer initiatives. She / he also coordinates with Marketing to develop and execute plans consistent with business goals.

The Senior Director role will function as the primary point person for facilitating the delivery of priorities with customers. She / he will manage demand forecasting, analytics, category management, sales communication, and channel development. The position plays a critical role in developing key sales drivers and setting priorities to achieve business objectives, developing annual and quarterly sales plans, and communicating with the sales team via comprehensive selling materials to achieve business results.

The successful candidate will be entrepreneurial, innovative, and excel at disruptive thinking. She / he will have analytical horsepower, excellent business judgment, strong operational skills, and a passion for creating a world class brand experience for Square Roots’ customers. The Senior Director will be a passionate individual that enjoys a fast-paced work environment and has the mental flexibility to develop systems and processes to help a young and innovative company grow.  This role reports directly to the EVP Sales & Marketing and has 2 direct reports.

You will: 

• Lead development of overall sales strategy to become best-in-class among competitors, and lead prioritization and resource allocation in collaboration with cross functional team members to achieve top line growth targets.
• Lead demand forecasting for the organization, ensuring strong collaboration across Sales, Operations and Farming to ensure supply meets demand across markets.
• Understand each of the brand and marketing strategies and drive these messages to the direct sales team with guidance on the best way to deliver for the customers.
• Advise and guide marketplace pricing and value offerings across all channels / customers and ensure that these price offerings are consistently delivered.
• Define clear and specific assortment, promotion, pricing and shelving strategies and objectives by channel to ensure outstanding sales execution.
• Oversee communication to direct sales team and serve as a single point of contact for messaging, escalated issues, and prioritization of initiatives and funds.
• Collaborate with Marketing on operating budget to prioritize investment in support of company delivery of topline revenue and volume targets, including active management of spending on shopper marketing, trade and slotting where required.
• Ensure alignment with cross functional teams to optimize selling efforts and production plans, leading and managing the deployment and communication with direct sales team and proactively identifying key business opportunities to support topline goals.
• Drive launch planning and execution for all innovation, including development of pre-sell strategy and establishing KPIs for successful innovation launches.
• Manage promotional processes from the planning stage to development to execution, ensuring reporting mechanisms to measure trade spend effectiveness are in place, all customer timelines are met, and deliverables are successfully executed.
• Provide trade spend strategies and management for all channels of trade and customers.

You have experience with:

• Four-year undergraduate degree in Business Administration or Marketing.
• Customer facing experience within larger grocery or natural speciality retailers; distributor experience ideal
• Strong forecasting knowledge of customers in the market.
• Previous sales planning experience within demand planning, analytics, category management and trade management.
• Proven ability to influence decision makers across an organization; ability to inspire, motivate and hold a team accountable.
• Possess exceptional leadership and people management skills, demonstrating an ability to move and influence teams towards a common goal and objective.
• Ability to devise and deliver persuasive presentations and clear sales plans, based on data-driven insights and facts to gain support for business strategies and initiatives.
• Proven track record of success defining and delivering innovative approaches and new or improved solutions to business issues, driving long-term business results.
• Demonstrated success pioneering with early stage, innovative brands in fast-paced, high growth consumer facing companies.
• Demonstrated ability to operate both strategically and tactically in a high-energy, fast-paced environment.
• High degree of organization and ability to manage multiple, competing priorities simultaneously.
• Demonstrated success in building trade marketing processes from request / projection to post event analysis and reconciliation is a plus.

You are:

• Visionary, positive, and energetic leader with a strong sense of urgency to create a sustainable winning culture
• Values aligned and passionate about real, local food
• Strategic thinker: creative problem solver with proven ability to turn strategy into action
• Analytical mindset with strong financial acumen to define problems, collect data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions

You'll love working at Square Roots because: 

• We're here to change the food system. You'll have the opportunity to play a significant role in our work at the intersection of technology, farming, and the global food industry - and we're only just getting started. 
• Our team is driven by a shared set of values. These keep us aligned and remind us how to show up every day in the face of growth and ambiguity. Whether you’re working remotely or on the farms,  collaboration, respect, optimism and humility are all embraced, and we seek to empower people at every step. Ask us about the rest!
• Benefits and perks, of course. We're all here first and foremost to play our part in the mission, but medical, dental, and vision coverage, flexible work life culture, and lots of samples of the delicious food we grow certainly do not hurt. 

COVID-19 Vaccine Policy:

New employees are required to be fully vaccinated prior to their start date. The definition of fully vaccinated includes a booster for those that are eligible.

You are considered fully vaccinated if: 

• You have received a full series of the vaccine recently (meaning 2 doses within 5 months for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, or 1 dose within 2 months for Johnson and Johnson). 
• You received your full series over 5 months ago for Pfizer and Moderna or over 2 months ago for Johnson and Johnson, and have also received a booster shot. 

Proof of vaccination is required during the hiring process, and employees will be required to get booster shots as they become eligible to maintain their fully-vaccinated status.  

As federal guidance on booster shots evolves, the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ may change.  

In accordance with EEOC guidance, if you are not vaccinated or do not intend to be due to medical reasons or deeply held religious beliefs, you may make an accommodation request and Square Roots will make a reasonable effort to accommodate you, subject to the requirements of the role you are applying for. 

Failure to be fully vaccinated by start date without a documented accommodation will result in offer rescindment or termination.

​​