Customer Development Director for Arla Sweden (parental leave cover, 12 months), Solna HQ

Do you have experience with business development at a strategic level? Can you lead the fact-based commercial development of our customers and Arla? And can you nurture a highly skilled team of category management, shopper marketing and customer marketing?

This is your chance to step into an essential role as Customer Development Director within a global FMCG market leader. Here, you will help Arla be a preferred business partner for our retail customers. You will also ensure we stay up to date on what is important to Swedish shoppers and guarantee we translate consumer, shopper, customer and professional end-user insights into a meaningful direction for the dairy business and specific business cases for our customers. This is a temporary position, offered as a 12-month parental leave cover.

“With a view to scalability as well as local markets and trends, you will build and scale the dairy business across channels, customers and shoppers while identifying possibilities and trends for the future business of Arla Sweden to pursue,” says Vice President of Retail Sales Jens Olsson.

How you will make an impact

At our HQ in Solna, Sweden, you will lead a team of skilled specialists who work with net revenue management & data insight, category, channel, shopper and customer development. Coaching, mentoring and providing direction, you will deliver insights-driven business opportunities, create solutions and implement initiatives for commercial growth – for our retail partners as well as Arla Sweden. Your most important responsibilities will be to:

• Bring our food and dairy vision: ”Better food habits grow dairy” to life, making Arla a preferred shopper and business development partner within FMCG
• Decide on sales channel strategies across all dairy and drinks channels, including retail, super/hypermarkets, and convenience
• Build, manage and realise a portfolio of business opportunities and a pipeline for sales optimisation possibilities for the next 1-3 years
• Ensure the development of thought leadership and in-depth category, shopper and customer knowledge, which is translated into recommended courses of action
• Improve co-operation and ongoing build-up of competences in the team to ensure we have the capabilities to reach our targets
• Lead our Net Revenue Management program to maximize revenue and sales contribution growth
  
  

What will make you successful

You skilfully balance long-term and short-term decision-making, keeping an eye on underlying market trends 3 years ahead while always staying on top of the sales opportunities for the next half year. You have a solid understanding of business development and effortlessly tackle complex business problems. And as a leader, you can create commitment to change and new initiatives. Moreover:

• You hold a bachelor's or master's degree in business or equivalent
• You are an experienced and successful people manager
• You have 8+ years of experience from roles within e.g. FMCG retail sales, marketing, strategy and/or business development and potential experience from retail chain development and/or category buying
• You can demonstrate experience with sales strategy planning and leadership roles
• You master an analytical and a data-driven approach to business development
• If you have experience from strategic management consulting and possess some knowledge of category management and shopper marketing, it is a clear plus
• You communicate effortlessly in English and Swedish language skills is an advantage

What do we offer?

Reporting directly to the VP of Retail Sales for Arla Foods Sweden, you will lead and nurture a highly skilled team. You will also become part of two competent leadership groups – The Sales Leadership Team (SLT) and, the Europe Customer Marketing Lead Team – to help us all bring Arla into the future. Finally, you will engage to develop our customer business directly where you can contribute with value.

Arla Foods has collective agreements, and we always ensure to offer good and competitive working conditions. In addition to that, safety and working environment are our top priorities, which is why we, among other things, conduct random drug and alcohol tests.

Create the future – Grow with Arla

Application and contact

We love what we do and are looking for a passionate colleague to join us and have fun doing it. Are you interested - please apply ASAP! We will be reviewing applications on an ongoing basis.

Shape the Future of Dairy 

Arla is a global leader in the dairy industry, committed to producing high-quality products while championing sustainability and innovation. We're passionate about people and our planet, striving to unleash the full potential in each of us. Our goal is to make healthy dairy nutrition and good food habits accessible to all. Join us at Arla Foods and become part of a worldwide cooperative dedicated to making a significant impact on the planet and steering the dairy industry towards a sustainable future. 

We are devoted to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and empowered to bring their authentic selves to work. Diversity and collaboration are key to our success, propelling us to new heights in the dairy industry. 

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Would you like to be part of a team that has great ambitions, challenging tasks, diversity throughout and plenty of development opportunities? If so, then Arla is the company for you.

We’re the farmer-owned dairy cooperative behind global brands Arla®, Lurpak® and Castello® and our 19,000-strong team of passionate people have helped us become the fifth largest dairy company in the world and the largest producer of organic dairy products.