Account Manager (flavors)

Job Summary

Responsible for driving sustainable profitable sales and market share growth by identifying the customer needs and opportunities, establishing solid customer relationship, leading, coordinating and reporting IFF activities and promoting relevant solutions aligned with corporate strategy. For a defined territory, category, coordinated or global account: Ensure financial targets are met and business performance is constantly monitored and reported; develop and maintain sustainable relationships with internal and external customers; prepare account plan and report relevant market information; collaborate with internal departments to explore innovations and new concepts related to customers' products and on-going projects; monitor market development in terms of competitors, products, and trends; partner with operation team to ensure customer satisfaction in terms of service, quality, and supply. The role will be based in 6th October, Cairo.

Responsibilities/Description

1. Understand specific market and customer ecosystem including activities, strategies, brands, markets, consumers via different sources
2. Develop multi-level cross-functional customer relationships with key customer decision makers/influencers
3. Contribute/lead commercial negotiation (e.g., core listing, annual pricing, payment terms, rebates/cost savings agreements, supply contracts)
4. Maximize potential advantage to IFF while delivering optimal solutions to customer (GP improvement, catalogue optimization, complexity reduction, etc.)
5. Ensure customer supply chain requirements, processes and KPIs are well communicated to IFF Operations to ensure we meet customer needs
6. Understand customer regulatory requirements/changes and update data to GRA and input to project management system
7. Acts as the main customer point of contact in all matters
8. Demonstrate IFF Culture Principles and live our values
9. Manage and/or mentor junior team members/peers, and onboard and coach new team members
10. Influencing stakeholders to align on shared objectives
11. Lead projects through effective communication, and collaboration with key external and internal stakeholders (CI/Marketing/Creative Teams/formulation etc.)
12. Ensure objectives are aligned to the business and personal development plans are in place
13. Proactively solicit and give feedback to nurture high performing teams
14. Demonstrate leadership courage by challenging the status quo and holding self and others accountable to always doing the right things
15. Develop commercial strategy for allocated customer portfolio
16. Build and execute account plans successfully
17. Responsible for setting clear commercial targets (Sales/GP/New Win/Grow Market share) with the manager / Achieve new wins / grow market / market share aligned with account strategic plan
18. Define and suggest the required account resources, investment, and relevant service model to support the account
19. Effectively communicate the account plans with stakeholders including internal and external team members
20. Review/update the progress of account plans versus KPI targets
21. Ensure accurate monthly sales forecast to allow for effective operations planning and financial analysis
22. Conduct retrospective reviews on projects wins and losses
23. Review brief and ensure all objectives and parameters are clear
24. Influence customer brief definition to IFF's advantage
25. Organize a formal commercial kick off with relevant stakeholders and finalize action plan, objectives & timelines with clear deliverables and key milestones and update Project Management System
26. Liaise with Global/Regional/Category stakeholders on overall plan, strategy, and deliverables
27. Evaluate and decide on final submissions with Scent Design Group and Creative teams
28. Effectively promote the most appropriate IFF product solutions / portfolio aligned with the brief
29. Generate proposal/price aligned with category margin guidelines or pricing officer
30. Prepare presentation materials and staging submissions with stakeholders that maximizes IFF commercial advantage and resources
31. Monitor and ensure cost-to-serve of projects adhere to guidelines
32. Communicate project results and conduct retrospective reviews on projects wins and losses
33. Update Project management system and issue adoption report in a timely manner
34. Manage volumes/timing expectations and liaise with Operations to ensure supply chain readiness
35. Defend and grow accounts whilst actively scouting for new customers, transforming leads into profitable business opportunities
36. Accurately forecast and update sales forecast tool (SFT) to capture performance vs budget, business risk & opportunities, new wins
37. Monitor & Provide Account sales performance (monthly / quarterly / annually) and provide strategic project updates to Manager
38. Implement price increase in line with country/region strategy
39. Lead internal and external teams to win projects

Requirements

• Experience: Approximately 3-5 years of experience in sales, sales service, product development, or marketing preferably fragrance, cosmetics, FMCG, flavors, chemical or ingredients industries
• Strong track record at a similar level with a passion to succeed in commercial
• Skills: Customer centric with B2B management experience
• Analytical with the ability to deal with financial concepts/processes (pricing/margin/forecasting)
• Strong interests in product development, consumers, and market understanding (Marketing/R&D/CI)
• Sound fragrance knowledge and olfactive skills or skin care and biochemistry knowledge, where applicable
• Creative and innovative thinking
• Project management with effective collaboration and orchestration skills
• Strong communication, presentation, storytelling, and negotiation skills
• Understanding of digital marketing and ecommerce environment
• Effective business English with a global mindset and ability to work with different cultures
• Digital savvy with an ability to leverage online resources
• Ability to gather and leverage competitive market intelligence

Training / Certifications

• Essential: Bachelor's degree
• Preferred: Concentration in Business, Marketing, Chemistry, or Biology / Arts & Fashion Master's Degree

We are a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering our customers a broader range of natural solutions and accelerating our growth strategy. At IFF, we believe that your uniqueness unleashes our potential. We value the diverse mosaic of the ethnicity, national origin, race, age, sex, or veteran status. We strive for an inclusive workplace that allows each of our colleagues to bring their authentic self to work regardless of their religion, gender identity & expression, sexual orientation, or disability.