Senior Business Development Manager - CEE Partner Markets

Who we’re looking for

• Need to demonstrate the ability to lead, inspire and develop the direct team and influence the organization
• Self-starter with proven ability to identify issues and projects, plan and prioritize
• Demonstrate the ability to organize and manage multiple markets and projects to completion by specific deadlines.
• Strategic vision and thinking ability, possess out-of-box thinking to uncover (new) business opportunities
• Ability to build and foster strong relationships at all levels internally and externally with strong stakeholder awareness
• Great analytical skills, commercially savvy and solution focused to solving problems
• Willing to travel up to 40% of time (current assumption)
• Superior communication skills (influencing, listening, presentations, written)
• Fluent in English, both spoken and written
• IT literate - MS Office applications & Google applications
• 8+ years of experience in a similar/relevant position in the Consumer Goods industry, preferably Wine & Spirits, Luxury Goods, FMCG
• Ideally be knowledgeable of the distributor/brand owner relationship
• Strong commercial acumen, ability to translate business strategy into operational tactics
• Genuine passion and interest for sales management and business development
• Proven leadership, strategic thinking and decision-making abilities
• Proven track record of successfully delivering business growth in a highly competitive environment
• Strong interpersonal skills; able to develop and maintain effective working relationships with all levels of internal and external contacts and with diverse cultures
• Required previous line manager experience
• Able and willing to travel internationally and attend evening and weekend events when needed

What you’ll do

• Develop long-term strategy for the region: build, review, lead and propose the RTC evolution in the CEE Partner Markets with key B-F stakeholders
• Set annual strategic priorities with distributors aligned to B-F’s strategic growth ambitions, market, portfolio and channel opportunities
• Leading the development and executing Annual Market/Portfolio/Channel Plans to achieve aligned Key Performance Indicators
• Responsible for the rolling forecast, regularly managing and monitoring distributor performance and partnering to achieve annual objective and distributor KPI’s
• Leads negotiation of distributor contracts in the market(s); building terms which promote long-term sustainable growth
• Provide leadership, direction and personal development of the team as well as BF dedicated teams in distributors’ organization, in close collaboration with HRBP function.
• Develop consistent investment plans across markets and trade channels ensuring the investment criteria and objectives are constantly evaluated and optimized based on ROI model
• Monitor with BF Finance partner the value chain with Distributor partner such as distributor Net Sales and margins, trade spending ensuring efficient trade investment
• Track brand performance/KPIs and provide solutions and recommendations to the management team of any changes to P&L projections or strategic/tactical direction to ensure continuous business development
• Build and develop an efficient reporting system and conduct regular reports to BF team providing updates of trade channels and competitive activities
• Establish ways of working with distributors and collaboration to properly manage the business and fulfill internal reporting requirements
• Regularly providing updates to the leadership team on market environment, portfolio/channel developments and promotional activities
• Working with the distributor partners, lead rolling forecasting updates and IBP for the market(s) and ensure resource allocation (discounts, gift, A&P) is supporting relevant growth expectations

About the position

The Senior Business Development Manager (BDM) leads the development and implementation of commercial strategy across the Central Eastern Europe (CEE) Partner Markets cluster. This role partners closely with the local distributors and regional management to develop our strategic partnerships and to co-create priorities for the mutual benefit of Brown-Forman and our distributor partner. This role will be an integral part of the Czechia & Slovakia and CEE Partner Markets Leadership Team and reporting to Senior General Manager.

Benefits

• Total Rewards at Brown-Forman is designed to engage our people to ensure sustainable and profitable growth for generations to come. As a premium spirits company, we offer equitable pay structures for individual and company performance alongside a premium employee experience. We offer a range of premium benefits that reflect our company values and meet the needs of our diverse workforce.