Customer Account Manager Personal Care & Gifting

Customer Account Manager Personal Care & Gifting

Location: Kingston Head office

Hybrid: 2 days per week in the office + travel to customer site

Full time

About Unilever 

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Dove, Tresemme, Lynx, Lifebuoy, Shea Moisture, Persil, Domestos, Marmite, The Vegetarian Butcher, Graze and Pot Noodle.

Faced with the challenge of climate change and the need for human development, we want to move towards a world where everyone can live well and within the natural limits of the planet. That’s why our purpose is ‘to make sustainable living commonplace’  

Job Purpose
Unilever is the market leader within Personal Care, across 2 key categories: Deodorants and Skin Cleansing. The category is driven by some of the largest and most loved brands, including Lynx, Dove and Sure.

The Customer Account Manager will be responsible for building strong working relationships with the customer buying team; developing and executing customer business plans at a category level which deliver Growth, Market Share and Profitability. They are accountable for the day to day contact with the customer buyers, supply chain, shopper marketing, internal category & brand contacts, across Male Toiletries, Female Deodorants and Gifting, whilst supporting the direct team to manage the Skin Cleansing business.

Main Responsibilities
Line manage and develop Customer Account Executives
• Line Management of:
• 1 x Customer Account Executive
• 1 x Degree Level Apprentice
Build strong and sustainable customer relationships
• Negotiate effectively with your customer, e.g. to agree trade terms, trade funding, and counterparts according to the Unilever strategy on his/her categories
• Manage the relationship aspects of key customer ‘events’, e.g. launching of new products, cost price changes, breaches of trade terms
• Manage promotional and non-promotional investments with the customer and ensures all agreements are properly documented and stored
• Work closely with Customer Experience Specialists, Customer Planners and other cross functional members of the team to ensure administrative aspects of promotions are completed

• Lead customer strategy development and major customer and category initiatives
• Develop and deliver the customer strategic business plan for relevant categories, and the joint customer business plan, working closely with Category Managers and Shopper Marketing
• Develop and deliver an optimal integrated category promotional plan (including selling the plan with the customer)
• Manage the launch of new products with customers, e.g. selling in the new product, providing samples etc
• Ensure effective in-store activation of key events (e.g. promotions, range reviews), providing clear briefings to the Retail Operations Team
• Business Planning, sales updates, in store tracking, price claim management etc)
• Delivery of required admin for the customer – pricing, rebates, NLF, promo proposals, trade terms, contracts

• Be accountable for financial performance of categories within area of responsibility
• Manage the customer P&L for relevant categories and the overall level of customer investment
• Manage in-month performance vs forecast, working closely with CBMs and other Cross functional members
• Manage accruals and pricing accurately and efficiently
• Ensure customer is compliant with agreed trade terms; where these are breached seek a resolution and monitor implementation
• P&L Management: Delivery of Turnover & Business Building Terms targets for specific category
• S&OP Forecasting
• Provision of clear up to date inputs into Business Processes (Promotional Evaluation, Customer

Experiences & Qualifications -
• Prior commercial experience and exposure to P&L
• Proven history of working within a team environment
• Prior experience of leading and developing a direct report preferable however not essential
• Minimum 3 years relevant Account Management/Field Sales experience
• Any prior experience in Category Management is preferable however not essential
• Prior experience of performing a CAM role is essential

Skills
• Customer management & selling essentials
• Strong Communication skills
• Experience of leveraging big customer relationships
• Proactive and curious mindset
• Stakeholder management
• Strong negotiation skills

What we offer

Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all. 

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities and growing together for better business performance. We embrace diversity in our workforce. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. We are also more than happy to provide reasonable adjustments during our application and interview process to enable you to be present your best self. To find out more, including about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (unilever.com).