Director of Sales, Private Label, Americas

Director of Sales, Private Label, Americas

Location: Pittsburgh

Department: Sales

Thai Union is one of the world’s leading seafood companies with more than $4 billion in annual sales. As the parent company of proud brands including Chicken of the Sea, Genova, King Oscar, John West, and Petit Navire, Thai Union packs 1 out of every 5 tuna cans and pouches in the world. Thai Union has 45k employees and 14 production facilities across the globe. In addition, Thai Union has perishable production capabilities for frozen shrimp, crab, and value-added products, and features its i-Tail pet care division which went public in 2022.

The greatest differentiator for Thai Union is its focus on sustainability, innovation, and people. With its Sea Change® platform, Thai Union is the #1 food company on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the #1 company on the Seafood Stewardship Index. Thai Union continues to have a relentless focus on innovation with its Global Innovation Center in Thailand and its new Ambient Innovation Hub in the Netherlands to support Western initiatives. Finally, Thai Union places great investment in training its people with a focus on 6 core values: Collaborative, Responsible, Humble, Passionate, Respectful, and Innovative.

About the Role:

We are seeking a dynamic and strategic leader to drive the growth and success of the Ambient OEM business across the Americas. This role is pivotal in defining and executing the regional commercial strategy in alignment with global objectives. The Sales Director will own the end-to-end P&L for the Americas, ensuring top-line and bottom-line performance while fostering commercial excellence through new account penetration, cross-category growth, and strategic client relationships. Collaboration with demand planning, manufacturing, and supply chain teams will be essential to optimize operations and productivity. Additionally, the role includes leading and inspiring a high-performing team, driving engagement, building succession plans, and championing a cohesive, positive culture that embodies Thai Union’s global vision.

Key Responsibilities:

Set strategic direction

· Define and drive execution of sales strategy across all countries / clusters in North & South America, incl. account prioritization and supporting KAMs on relationship management and key negotiations at the regional level (e.g., for cross-market accounts)

· Define customer-level sales KPIs across countries / clusters, monitor performance and proactively intervene to close gaps vs. targets

· Review and make recommendations to Managing Director Ambient OEM on proposed initiatives, projects, and investments from country / cluster leads, ensuring alignment with overall Americas commercial strategy

Lead E2E P&L growth

· Drive and be accountable for top-line and bottom-line performance and overall market share for the Americas

· Be accountable for E2E profitability for the Americas within agreed COGS baseline with Ambient Manufacturing & Supply Chain

· Set yearly financial targets for the Americas, and work directly with country / cluster leads to set budgets and yearly financial targets and align with BU lead on annual final budget

· Identify any financial risk that may impact achieving P&L targets, and work directly with country / regional leads to mitigate any issue

Commercial excellence

· Drive customer account pipeline growth and new account penetration

· Strengthen customer relationships with existing accounts, including directly managing high-priority account relationships

· Develop accounts from transactional relationships to strategic relationships

· Develop and drive implementation of initiatives to grow share of wallet, including driving cross-category sales

· Drive improvements in service levels and customer satisfaction

· Collaborate with Managing Director Ambient OEM to build relationships and drive negotiations with BU key strategic accounts in the Americas (e.g., Top 10 BU accounts)

· Drive deployment of commercial excellence capabilities and best practices throughout Americas sales and sales support teams

· Grow and maintain industry knowledge at the region level, focusing on competitor development, price levels, developments around fish and other cost drivers, and sustainability developments in various markets

Operational Collaboration

· Ensure that demand planning team has necessary inputs (e.g. sales forecasts) to seamlessly coordinate with Ambient Manufacturing & Supply Chain through S&OP process; share feedback on production service levels

· Jointly drive cross-country/cluster productivity improvement projects, including improving shared KPIs and accountabilities with Ambient Manufacturing & Supply Chain

· Collaborate with Americas demand planning team to enrich demand planning baseline and provide insights on new / discontinued accounts

· Collaborate with Ambient Manufacturing & Supply Chain and other leads as needed to identify issues in production / planning (e.g., high inventory, short raw material supply) and propose joint solutions

Commercial Collaboration

· Collaborate with peer Commercial Leads (i.e. AMEA, Europe, Global Tuna Loin) to share market insights and adopt best practices

· Work with relevant commercial teams on joint go-to-market approaches for global/ shared customers across different regions

· Align with Seafood Branded Market Leads on approach to shared customers (i.e., customers where we sell both branded and OEM products)

· Maintain sufficient awareness of status of branded business in relevant countries and build / maintain relationship with local business leaders

Innovation Collaboration

· Drive coordination with the Ambient OEM R&D teams to ensure seamless process for both customer development projects and new product development projects, including supporting right prioritization of projects and productivity improvements

· Oversee Americas innovation pipeline for new product development projects with the Ambient OEM R&D lead, ensuring right products being developed, clear pipeline in place and aligned with Branded BU, and that regional R&D costs are within targets

· Work with sales support leads to track status of all running projects and provide mitigating action where needed

People and leadership

· Motivate, lead, and challenge team members to reach/ exceed business unit targets and objectives

· Build/Complete the new cohesive and collaborative Americas team comprising members based in different countries; drive a positive sharing culture across Americas team and with other teams across Thai Union

· Create a positive working culture to attract, develop and retain talent as well as drive employee satisfaction within the scope, in collaboration with HR

· Coach teams on daily activities to fully leverage talent of the team; proactively identify high-potential talents in the team

· Be the role model on Thai Union’s 6 values and actively promotes and embeds the “One Thai Union” ethos

· Actively coach and lead teams through change and ensure that BU leadership team do the same

· Drive to improve career development paths & performance mgmt. through mentorship to enhance team motivation and retain quality talent

· Foster a culture of continuous learning and development to enhance employee skills and competencies

· Build longer term view/ plan around people, prepare succession plans at different levels

· Manage people budget for the BU, in collaboration with HR

· Be available to support and guide KAMs and other team members for day to day activities

Requirements:

· Ability to lead and motivate country / cluster teams, build a diverse and trust-based leadership team, and develop talent across country clusters within Americas region

· Strong proficiency in B2B OEM sales, regional sales, business strategy, and P&L ownership with the ability to identify and analyze complex problems and develop effective solutions and develop long-term strategic plans

· Demonstrates strong relationship management skills, able to develop long-term customer relationships

· Excellent communication skills to effectively convey commercial and technical information to team members, internal, and external stakeholders

· Strong interpersonal skills to foster a culture of collaboration and effectively drive cross-functional collaboration

· Proven international experience across commercial setting, global plant sourcing, and people leadership

· Experience in building new virtual teams

Thai Union is committed to providing equality of opportunity. If you require any reasonable adjustments to help support your application, please let us know.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer of Minorities, Females, Protected Veterans, and Individuals with Disabilities.