General Manager

Location: Houston, TX (Onsite minimum 3 days per week)

Salary: Up to $150k per annum

Job Type: Fulltime, Permanent

Company Overview:

En Route International is a leading provider of premium baked goods, meals, and snacks to the travel industry. With a global presence and a focus on partnering with world-class manufacturers, we offer customized products and packaging to meet individual customer needs.

Job Purpose:

The General Manager - Sales and Business Development will be responsible for driving the proactive development of strategic sales activities and identifying operational solutions and product-based opportunities for En Route's products to target clients and customers.

This role will report to the Commercial Director and will be responsible for delivering revenue and gross margins with targeted customers, developing relationships, and proactive strategic solution selling to airlines, caterers, and customers across North America.

The General Manager will also be responsible for working with internal and external stakeholders to develop and drive new product initiatives, including training programs, tasting sessions, product and packaging enhancements.

Key Responsibilities:

• Accountability for all budgeted costs and involvement in contract negotiations with prospective clients and caterers.
• Growing market share, achieving and exceeding sales and gross margin targets.
• Promoting and participating in Demand Creation initiatives, such as substitutions, specification management, and selling processes.
• Strategy and account planning for key accounts.
• Forecasting, monitoring, and evaluating sales performance of key accounts and self.
• Analyzing competitor activity and using data to formulate proposals for changes in strategy.
• Reporting through the CRM system.
• Overseeing the operation of the US office and associated activities.
• Collaborating with the US and Global Commercial Team to create a shared vision and clear roadmap that drives a step change in performance to achieve growth in the region and supports global customer initiatives.
• Maintaining an awareness of and exercising judgment in market conditions, competitive activities, general economic conditions, and governmental, legislative, and regulatory matters.
• Identifying new market and product opportunities and feeding back market requirements to HQ as appropriate.
• Providing inspirational leadership to the US sales team and engaging, motivating, and driving the team in a 'can-do' fashion to deliver day-to-day growth while considering options for improving strategic relationships.
• Ensuring that the team has every opportunity to learn, develop, and progress, providing appropriate training in order that people are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to perform their roles with confidence and progress in their careers.
• Developing and executing strategic sales plans in conjunction with the Managing Director to achieve sales targets and expand the customer base.
• To proactively develop and maintain relationships with airlines, caterers, and other targets to secure new business opportunities for En Route.
• Acquiring deep knowledge and insights into customer businesses and developing strategic alliances with key decision-takers and decision-influencers up to and including main board level.
• Understanding customer business development plans and how En Route can support and enable them.
• Aligning team goals with the sales strategy to drive innovation that meets commercial needs while exceeding consumer expectations.
• To be involved in strategically developing solutions for prospective clients and leading sales activities to prospective clients through face-to-face meetings and presentations.
• To ensure all customer and prospective records and information is kept current in appropriate En Route systems, maintaining up-to-date CRM data to manage opportunities and the pipeline in a structured way.
• Establishing appropriate goals and measures for short- and long-term sales and overall growth in line with En Route vision and targets, and regularly evaluating results against these performance standards to ensure profitable growth.
• Developing and promoting new business opportunities, innovations, and ideas with active involvement and support of NPD and Creative Teams.
• Collaborating with other key functions (Operations, NPD, Creative, and Finance, etc.) to ensure seamless project management and effective robust planning and delivery of the prospective and current customer promise.

Candidate Profile:

• An effective leader capable of taking a business-wide perspective and coordinating resources effectively to achieve the agreed organizational goals and objectives.
• Able to work in a matrix organization and balance competing resource demands effectively.
• A level of gravitas to be able to deal with C-level executives on major projects is also important.
• Strong business expertise – has a good perspective and regard for the other functions and works hard to ensure that sales deliver growth plans for the future.
• Extensive knowledge of demand generation, direct and indirect sales activity, strategic selling, and account management techniques.
• Credible, self-assured but with a degree of humility. A real collaborator and team player – confident, resilient, and with a good sense of humor, and a passion for food and passionate about what they do.
• A structured and organized sales professional who can deal with all levels within a client-facing business.
• An inquisitive listener with the ability to identify with and understand client challenges and build trust and influence.
• Ideally food or airline sector experience or experience gained in a fast-paced environment – with similar complexity of multi-stakeholder and global distribution.
• An effective relationship builder who has worked in an environment or sector undergoing substantial and rapid change and growth.
• Adaptable to working in a dynamic environment with the ability to multi-task with multiple external shareholders and customers.
• Ambitious, energetic, tenacious, and collaborative. A strong people-focused individual capable of building high-performing teams.
• Excels in judgment, decision-making, and the relentless execution of plans.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Extremely well-organized.
• Ability to prioritize workload, multitask, and work to deadlines.
• Ability to work on own initiative.
• High attention to detail and accuracy skills, ability to gather and analyze information.
• Strong business and commercial acumen.
• An effective relationship builder who has worked in an environment or sector undergoing substantial and rapid change and growth.
• Strong negotiation and closing skills.
• Useful to understand continuous improvement programs and the application of relevant tools and methods.
• Useful to have WCM / Lean Certification (TPS, Lean, Six Sigma).
• Ability to communicate across all levels of the organization.
• Ability to coordinate multiple tasks concurrently in a fast-paced environment, demonstrating flexibility in response to changing requirements and quickly adapting to changing priorities, activities, and deadlines.
• Demonstrate high attention to detail.

Skills / Experience:

• Strong IT skills: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.
• Experience using Business Central.
• Commercial experience of Sales, Cost, and Gross to Operating Margins.
• Understanding of PowerBI.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Strong commercial acumen.
• Solutions-driven.
• Motivated self-starter.