Senior Director, Retail Sales

Village Gourmet | Sales | Full-Time, Exempt | Remote/Home Office | Northeast Preferred
Help Shape the Next Chapter of Village Gourmet's Retail Growth

We're looking for an accomplished, strategic, and highly collaborative Senior Director, Retail Sales to lead our retail sales organization and national retail growth strategy across our premium charcuterie, sausage, deli, and specialty food portfolio.

This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who knows how to turn customer strategy into profitable growth, build strong retailer and distributor relationships, elevate sales team performance, and bring disciplined commercial execution to a growing organization. The role reports to the Vice President, Commercial - Retail & Marketing and is classified as full-time, exempt.
What You'll Lead
National Retail Growth

You will develop and execute Village Gourmet's national retail sales plan, aligning customer and channel priorities with revenue, margin, distribution, and portfolio goals. You'll identify the best opportunities across customers, geographies, and channels and translate them into clear annual and multi-year growth plans.
Strategic Customer, Broker & Distributor Relationships

You will own senior-level relationships with priority retail customers while leading annual planning, negotiations, issue resolution, and new business development. You'll also establish clear performance expectations and scorecards for brokers and distributors to strengthen accountability and execution.
Sales Team Leadership

You will lead, coach, and develop the retail sales organization across account leadership, regional sales, strategic account support, and sales administration. This includes establishing clear ownership, performance expectations, development priorities, and succession readiness while strengthening commercial judgment and independent decision-making across the team.
Commercial & Financial Performance

You'll own retail forecasting, pipeline reporting, sales budgeting, trade investment recommendations, and performance reviews. In partnership with Finance and Commercial leadership, you'll help evaluate pricing, promotional economics, customer profitability, deductions, and return on investment.
Cross-Functional Execution

You'll work closely with Marketing, R&D, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, and Quality to bring innovation, promotions, customer programs, and commercialization plans to life. Your customer and market insights will help shape decisions related to portfolio strategy, packaging, pricing, innovation, and launch execution.
What Success Looks Like

In this role, you will be expected to:

• Deliver profitable retail sales growth against revenue, margin, distribution, and portfolio priorities.
• Build strong, productive relationships with strategic customers, brokers, and distributors.
• Improve forecast quality, commercial discipline, and return on trade investment.
• Develop an accountable, capable retail sales team with clear ownership and strong execution.
• Successfully execute innovation and customer programs across functions and channels.
• Consistently demonstrate Village Gourmet's Core Values and disciplined operating principles.

Performance will be measured across areas including retail net sales and gross margin, distribution and velocity, forecast accuracy, trade investment effectiveness, strategic account growth, broker/distributor performance, team effectiveness, and innovation execution.
What You Bring

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, or a related field preferred.
• 12+ years of progressive retail sales experience in branded consumer packaged goods, including significant leadership responsibility.
• Demonstrated success leading national or multi-region retail customers, brokers, distributors, and sales teams.
• Experience selling refrigerated, deli, specialty food, meat, cheese, charcuterie, or adjacent premium food products strongly preferred.
• Strong knowledge of annual planning, forecasting, pricing, trade investment, customer profitability, and P&L-related decisions.
• Strong understanding of conventional, natural, specialty, club, mass, grocery, and e-commerce retail channels.
• Ability to translate customer and market insights into profitable growth plans and commercial priorities.
• Valid driver's license and ability to travel as required.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and sales, forecasting, reporting, and customer management systems.

The Leadership Style We Value

The ideal leader brings:

• Strategic, fact-based commercial judgment.
• Collaborative leadership and the ability to influence across functions.
• Strong coaching, communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.
• Accountability, decisiveness, adaptability, and disciplined execution in a growing organization.

Work Arrangement & Travel

This is a full-time, exempt position with a remote/home office arrangement; Northeast location preferred. Approximately 40%-60% travel is required to support customers, brokers, distributors, company locations, and other business priorities. Evening, weekend, or extended-hours work may occasionally be required based on customer and business needs.
Compensation

Base Salary Range: $180,000 - $220,000 annually
Bonus / Incentive Opportunity: Annual Bonus targeted at 20%

Final compensation will be determined based on factors such as experience, qualifications, geographic location, internal equity, and the scope of the role.

If you're energized by building strong customer partnerships, developing high-performing teams, and creating profitable growth across a distinctive portfolio of specialty food brands, we'd love to hear from you.