Merchandising Manager

About Zespri

Zespri is the world’s largest marketer of kiwifruit with over 800  people in New Zealand and throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas.
 

We  help people, communities and the environment thrive through the goodness of kiwifruit. We sit at the heart of an interconnected industry working with 2,800 growers in New Zealand and 1,500 growers in Italy, France, Greece, South Korea and Japan. We supply the world’s healthiest little superfruits to people in more than 50 countries. We are fruit on a mission.
 

Our values are at the heart of everything we do. We commit to guardianship; putting people, the community, and the environment first. We are results-driven, challenging ourselves to grow and deliver better value. We cultivate personal connections, listening and acting with empathy and humility – and treating each other better for it.
 

We are growing quickly, driven by our success in engaging more and more consumers and by offering the world’s best kiwifruit 12 months of the year. We have bold ambitions and aim to grow sales from approximately $3 billion in 2018 to $4.5 billion by 2025.
 

To achieve our goals, we’re empowering our people to achieve their goals, designing our work for wellbeing, through flexible work practices and self-leadership.
 

We have bold ambitions for the future and we want all of our people to live and perform at their best.
 

About The Role

For the growth of the business, proper merchandising, display, and product availability is vital to Zespri Kiwifruit in the future. As such, Zespri North America is seeking a Merchandising Manager to lead relationships with local agencies that will ensure our kiwifruit is displayed to the optimal shopper experience. This role reports to the Director of Trade Marketing while working across sales and marketing amongst other cross-functional teams.

This role is open for candidates located either in the Northeast US (New York/Philadelphia/Baltimore/Washington DC metro areas) or California (Newport Beach)

Accountabilities

• Develop and own a long-term plan for success across merchandising
• Owning communication across the sales team, broker/distributor partners, and other relevant parties
• Finding and developing partnerships with local agencies in key markets and retailers. 
• Being the primary contact for these agencies, partnering with Zespri sales and distributors to ensure seamless execution with retailers
• Partnering with agencies and distributors on key retailer events, e.g. product of the month, with the installation of displays across the retailer’s stores 
• Tracking in-store activities and market surveys with financial rigor and post-activity analysis
• Prioritizing resources and budget to ensure budget effectiveness while aligning with the long-term strategy
• Cross-functional interfacing with supply, finance, marketing, and sales to ensure brand priorities and quality benchmarks are upheld
• Review monthly reports from agencies and consolidate for internal Zespri reporting and share-out with sales and senior management
• Maintain inventory of display and point-of-sale materials in partnership with the marketing team
• Track promotional activity that occurs within merchandised accounts, working with syndicated data and shipment reports to create future benchmarks and strategies

Qualifications & Experience

• 5+ years of professional experience dealing with merchandising, agency management, grocery store management, or other relevant fields
• Bachelor’s Degree in BA/Marketing
• Experience working in cross-functional teams and managing different stakeholders.
• Experience in both written and verbal business communication as employees and agencies located across the country
• Analytical mindset, data-driven approach
• Fluent in English
• 3+ years experience in Microsoft suite of software (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook)
• Self-Starter, able to operate autonomously with the goal to improve the situation 
• Willing to travel domestically 10% of the year 

What's In It For You

• The base salary for this position is between 88k- 110k plus a performance-based short-term incentive scheme (for employees who meet the eligibility criteria). Please note that individual total compensation will vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies, performance and work location.
• FlexWELL flexible work ethos.
• Additional paid annual leave day per year (Zespri Day).
• Additional paid volunteer day to volunteer within your community (Volunteer Time).
• Global Life and Permanent Disability Insurance.
• Group Medical Insurance benefits.

Agency

Zespri will not accept applications or contact from any temporary staffing agency, placement service or professional recruiter for this vacancy (“Agency”).

Where Zespri requires the support of an agency to fulfil a vacancy, we will proactively seek this support from our network of Agencies.  We respectfully ask that you do not contact Zespri or any of its affiliates/employees regarding vacancies, and reserve the right not to reply.

Zespri will not be responsible for, and will not pay, any fees, commissions or other payments related to such unsolicited resumes.