Associate Key Account Manager, Petsmart

Company Description: Instinct® is a rapidly growing, family-owned marketer and manufacturer of science based 100% natural pet food for dogs and cats. Instinct® is the Raw Brand, with a mission to get more raw nutrition into every bowl of dogs and cats, for proven healthier and happier long lives. Our company mission is to Empower people to transform the lives of pets. We are committed to hiring and developing a team of passionate, performance-oriented professionals who live by our 4 values of championing raw, empowered to make a difference, collaborating as one team, and striving for excellence through continuous learning and improvement. Our home office is located in St. Louis, Missouri with our Center of Excellence Raw Food kitchens in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Instinct® is part of the family-owned group, Agrolimen, who owns leading pet food and human food businesses in the US, China, Europe, and Africa.

Position Summary: The Associate Key Account Manager supports strategies, relationships and processes that drive sales, share and margin for Instinct at PetSmart – a national Pet Specialty Superstore retailer. This person will support the day-to-day customer partnership and will work closely with a variety of internal and customer-based cross-functional teams to deliver excellence in execution with PetSmart to meet our mutual growth goals.

Primary Job Responsibilities:

• Partner closely with Retail Marketing to support customer engagement toward aligned 6P brand activation strategies and marketing tactics.
• Key administrative projects as needed.
• Collaborate with field training leadership to align on key metrics and KPIs to support strong execution at retail and to foster brand awareness and advocacy at the store level.
• Support daily account interactions (buyers, merchants, cross-functional teams for daily operations); participate in key customer meetings and prioritize, identify and resolve daily customer issues.
• Own customer support and manage customer operations, including order fulfillment, fill rate, order cycles and distributor coordination.
• Provide supporting inputs for annual planning and joint business planning (JBP) cycles.
• Analyze and report market and organizational data; translate into recommendations for actionable strategies that drive sales, share and margin.
• Benchmark and assess Instinct and competitive retail execution through qualitative and quantitative data points.
• Enable and drive excellence in execution, leveraging close collaboration with internal and external partners, detailed account and project management and consistent and clear communication.

Personal Attributes:

• Positive attitude and ability to receive and provide coaching/feedback
• Collaborative team player with demonstrated ability to successfully work cross-functionally delivering the best of Instinct to our customers
• Self-starter with ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously with a high degree of independence in a high paced environment
• Ability to manage budgets and projects on time and through completion
• Well organized having a strong attention to detail with a high level of accuracy
• Ability to understand customer P&L/business levers to drive towards KPIs
• Ability to identify opportunities and connect all data points
• Resourceful mindset and driven by new challenges
• Advanced written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to effectively adapt communication to all levels – from management to in-store partners
• Key Account and Category Management experience with ability to balance Customer, Consumer and Brand perspectives at the same time
• High degree of proficiency across Microsoft Office
• Strong analytical skills, using data to make sound recommendations affecting business decisions and results

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Management of national retailer
• 2-3+ years related work experience including, not limited to, account and category management, Consumer Packaged Goods sales, field sales, retail management
• Bachelor’s degree or higher
• Experience in Category Management (Pricing, Assortment and Market Share Analysis) and Customer Relationships
• Experience with syndicated data

Travel Requirements:

• Annual travel to Lincoln, NE for Company Rally
• 30% travel for participation in key customer meetings and regular in-market retail visits
• If based remotely, quarterly travel to Instinct home office in St. Louis, MO and PetSmart home office in Phoenix, AZ

Compensation and Benefits

Competitive compensation package includes health and dental insurance, life and AD&D insurance, flexible spending accounts, health savings account, short and long-term disability, paid time off, Purpose Days off for company partner volunteer opportunities, and 401k with company match

Our Instinct is to CHAMPION Diversity

At Instinct, we are as passionate about our people as we are about the pets we call family. We are committed to inclusion, empowerment, and respect. We believe that just like our pets, what sets us apart unleashes our greatest strengths. We thrive on the ability to not only empower people to transform the lives of pets through raw nutrition, but also to empower each other to inspire a culture that celebrates our differences. Our unique approach to pet food is what makes us who we are as a company, and our individual identities are what makes us a successful, innovative, authentic team.