Marketing Director

The Director Marketing for Food & Beverage North America is responsible for leading the integrated marketing efforts of the division in the US and Canada. This person will significantly contribute to the development and execution of business segments strategies in close collaboration with internal sales partners (Corporate Accounts and Field Sales). The Director is responsible for identifying NA market trends and customer insights, and translating them into opportunities to retain, grow and gain revenue and business profitability. An integral part of this position is working directly with key customers, corporate accounts, Research Development & Engineering (RD&E), and other global and regional marketing teams.

More specifically, this person will:

• Develop and drive the NA annual and five-year strategic plan for their division and its various segments, and partner with the regional leaders to drive their specific regional plans. 
• Deliver growth and profit objectives by developing overall marketing plans and programs. 
• Partner with the Global Marketing & Communications and other Divisional Marketing leaders to build functional excellence across the Marketing organization and develop the Functional Marketing Strategic Plan in conjunction with the supported business and enterprise goals in mind. Build and strengthen a productive, high-impact marketing team. 
• Contribute to develop Global Segments Strategies and develop regional marketing plans including strategy and positioning roll out, market research, product performance specifications, pricing analysis, sales forecasting, market share analysis, product line projections, and budgets across multiple markets. 
• Direct the development and implementation of sales, marketing and advertising strategies, plans, and programs necessary to meet and support the business plan. Do so in a manner that leverages and enhances existing brand strengths to optimize differentiation in the market and provide effective selling platforms 
• Formulate long-term innovation plans and work effectively with RD&E to develop and drive innovative new programs now in the pipeline and future new programs. This will involve leveraging existing and new anchor technologies to produce superior programs for both existing and developing customer bases. 
• Develop strong relations with business leaders and sales to create major corporate account programs. 
• Approve marketing and sales plans and programs for major customers. Meet as appropriate with customers to thoroughly understand needs and how to structure Ecolab’s value proposition. 
• Provide the sales force with effective marketing support, including sales tools, training, and problem-solving support as well as marketing communications to support sales growth. 
• Strategically develop existing and new channels of distribution. 
• Review and assess performance against marketing plans. 
• Review and present competitive analyses, quantitative, and qualitative data and develop plans to counter competing programs. 
• Review product/service lines in search of new opportunities or products, which should be modified or discontinued. 
• Become an integral part of the management team, focused on broader corporate goals. 
• Drive cross-divisional programs, strategies, and opportunities.

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing or business and 12+ years professional/marketing experience 
• Graduate degree in Marketing or MBA

Preferred:

Drive for Results

• Sets compelling goals and delivers against those through strong leadership and direction 
• Translates the vision/mission of the organization into actionable, quantitative plans 
• Conveys a sense of urgency and drives issues to closure 
• An inspirational and confident marketing leader with the passion to generate excitement

Strategic Thinking

• Well-developed financial management skills 
• Analytical skills, logical, decisive, and comfortable with financial and quantitative data. 
• Good strategic thinker with sound professional marketing and results orientation 
• Successful strategic planning experience for a significant business unit

Building Relationships/Influence

• Ability to persuade with strong conviction 
• Straightforward, articulate, tactful, and open in communicating (both verbally and written) with others. 
• Builds and sustains excellent relationships at multiple levels in the workplace 
• A mature, personable individual who is able to deal effectively with a strong sales operating culture 
• History of developing effective working relationships with sales, senior management, R&D, finance, regional leaders, and others in cross-functional environment 
• A record of strong working relationships with sales and key customers

Leadership and People Development

• Strong interpersonal communication and listening skills 
• Ability to take strong leadership role within the business 
• Strong people management/development skills 
• Dynamic, incisive and aggressive Marketing Leader 
• Foundation in classical marketing management 
• Experience and a strong track record of developing superior quality new programs 
• Know-how in developing pricing strategies 
• Experience in routinely tracking activities of competitors and the instinct to develop and implement innovative new programs.