Job Description
About Us: Since 1935, we’ve been on a mission to bring a little extra happiness to everyday life and inspire connections over food. We select the finest ingredients the world has to offer, craft premium products made with love, and never settle for shortcuts. We believe that when we share our food, we share a part of ourselves — and that’s the only way we’d put our name on it.
Today, our small family company has grown into a national leader in specialty olives, peppers, and sauces under the leadership of CEO Jeff Mezzetta, and our commitment to quality has never wavered. With an 80-year legacy behind us and a bright future ahead, we’re seeking passionate, driven candidates to help us bring our cherished family traditions to a new generation.
The ideal candidate will have an immediate connection to our Core Ingredients:
- Crunchy Crunchy: We are hungry for excellence.
- Own It: We think and act as an owner – with appetite, initiative, and responsibility.
- Connection: We build authentic relationships that foster trust and open communications.
- Vibrance: We come to work eager and passionate about fulfilling our vision. When we share our work, we share a part of who we are.
Under the general supervision of the Chief Sales Officer, the Director of Sales Strategy serves as the primary liaison between the customer sales team and internal functions such as Brand, Finance, and Supply Chain. This role is the execution arm of the business, partnering closely with field sales to champion the Annual Planning process, implement and maintain oversight of net revenue management and ensure brand strategies are effectively embedded into customer plans. This position involves developing and executing customer-specific strategies, managing budgets, and optimizing trade and promotional activities to drive sales growth and profitability. The Director of Sales Strategy maintains ownership (development, deployment, policing) of Annual Operating Plan both within the Sales team and back to cross-functional partners.
Summary: this leader drives category strategy, pricing architecture, annual planning design and adherence, trade investment performance, and cross-functional sales enablement.
This position is eligible to base remotely within the United States.
Responsibilities
- Own Mezzetta’s retail channel strategies in partnership with the CSO
- Lead the full annual planning cycle, including timeline development, milestones, templates, and governance.
- Collaborate with Sales and partner cross-functionally to build bottom-up channel and customer revenue, volume, trade, marketing, innovation, and cost assumptions.
- Consolidate financial projections from AOP (sales, margin, SG&A, trade spend, promotional investment).
- Translate strategic priorities into financial and operational targets.
- Facilitate alignment meetings and executive reviews to finalize the AOP.
- Monitor and maintain AOP tracking/adherence through fiscal year.
- Ensure trade spend, promotional calendars, pricing, and innovation plans are reflected in forecasts.
- Evaluate risks and opportunities across customers, retailers, and channels.
- Challenge assumptions to ensure realistic and achievable revenue targets.
- Actively partner with Finance and Marketing to build and manage financial models supporting volume, revenue, gross margin, and contribution forecasts.
- Lead post-event trade ROI analysis and inform annual trade budgets with Finance.
- Conducts sensitivity and scenario analyses (pricing, cost inflation, promotional lift, mix shifts).
- Build and refine customer segmentation, pricing, and promo guardrails.
- Drive performance analytics across syndicated data, retail portals, and internal scorecards.
- Collaborate with the Customer Sales Lead, Commercial Finance, Shopper Insights, Category Strategy and Category Management too identify and execute the initiatives that support overall sales goals.
- Partners with Marketing and Innovation to align new product launches to customer/channel opportunities including market performance expectations.
- Oversee sales operations and internal processes to ensure customer-facing teams are equipped to execute with accuracy, speed, and consistency.
- Co-own, with Supply Chain Planning Manager, Product Management Review (PMR) and Demand Management Review, step 1&2 of S&OP process.
- Collaborate with Finance, Marketing and Supply Chain for Integrated Financial Reconciliation (IR), step 4 of S&OP process.
- Net Revenue management ownership; oversee area trade budgets, ensuring efficient allocation and spending to achieve business objectives.
- Participate in vetting and implementation of Net Revenue new system design, acting as Lead for Sales function and partnering with Finance and IT to execute.
- Field communication: serve as the primary point of contact for communicating critical brand updates and sales priorities to the field sales team
- Identify and address risks, opportunities, and solutions that balance both customer requirements and business needs
- Conduct ad hoc business analysis to address emerging challenges or opportunities
- Maintain strong working relationships Marketing team, Category Management, Sales Finance, and cross-functional teams (Brand, Finance, Supply Chain)
- Coordinates with the CSO on all P&L decisions.
- Support board-level sales analysis as requested.
Requirements
- 12+ years experience in Sales or Sales Strategy/Customer Marketing within the CPG industry, previous selling, sales planning, trade marketing, or category management experience
- Trade and Revenue Management
- Strong proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite
- Strong proficiency with analytical tools: POS data, Nielsen/Circana, analytics tools (PowerBI)
- Strong sales, influencer and collaboration skills.
- Ability to think both strategically and tactically.
- Self-starter and project initiator
Pay Range
$200,000—$250,000 USD
Our Commitment to an Inclusive Workplace:
At Mezzetta, we embrace diversity and strive to create an inclusive environment where you know you belong. Part of that commitment includes a zero-tolerance policy and being an Equal Opportunity Employer that prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions at Mezzetta are solely based on merit, qualifications, abilities and business needs, without regard to race, color, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, age, marital status, national origin, disability, military or veteran status, family or parental status, pregnancy, or any other status protected by law. All of us share in the responsibility of fulfilling this commitment and creating a culture where our team can thrive.
