Gategroup

We’re looking for motivated, engaged people to help make everyone’s journeys better.

With a dual reporting line to the President of Gate Gourmet North America and to the Group CCO, the Regional CCO for North America, a lean organization of professionals in the sales & service, culinary, commercial, and retail departments who have responsibility for sales, customer service, service delivery, commercial strategy, new business development, contract negotiations, pricing, marketing, and commercial analytics for the NA Airline Catering Division of gategroup. The core objective of the position is to retain existing business and drive profitable new business through successful execution of commercial strategy and business development for the NA Region.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Setting the vision and executing the Commercial strategic plan, including development and execution of account strategies; bid pipeline management; network strategy development; expansion of integrated gategroup product portfolio, key customer relationship management; contracting adherence to corporate standards; and pricing strategy.
• Establishing infrastructure necessary to deploy the Commercial strategy including building, developing, and leading a motivated, robust, and effective sales, service and delivery organization; establishing protocols and resources for scenario-driven, fact-based decision making; and ensuring internal functions of the organization are aligned to meet strategic commercial objectives.
• Instituting effective communication at all levels of customer and operational interaction. Responsible for development of existing and future customer relationships.
• Supporting the President with regard to the organization's strategic management function, in drafting, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable the region to achieve long-term objectives.
• Directing select strategic planning and business development projects as they arise from concept development to implementation.
• Developing and maintaining a productive, professional, cross-functional relationship with operations, brands and corporate counterparts. 
• Driving culinary and retail product development/innovation functions to drive business growth and market share.
• Manages successful implementation of high-impact, high-visibility business development projects for non-airline business, traditional airline business, and inter-company projects.
• With sales force, develops bid strategy, sales approach, and negotiating tactics for obtaining new or retaining existing business taking into account profit and contract objectives.
• Directs development of and presents thoughtful and persuasive sales proposals and internal strategy documents to customers and senior management.
• Selectively engages in contract and pricing negotiations with customers including developing term sheets, reviewing contract proposals, analyzing customer proposals, and developing recommended counterproposals.
• Establishes and maintains senior-level relationships with customers, industry influencers, and key strategic partners.
• Represent the company at industry events, meetings, and in the press and media as necessary.
• Serve as a key member of the North American Leadership Team, supporting the President and other senior leaders in implementing and upholding the gategroup mission, vision, and values. 
• Assist in driving delivery of the company’s long-term strategic goals as well as ensuring day-to-day activities accurately reflect near-term priorities.
• Oversees completion of business case analyses for new customer or product strategies with a focus on new integrated product offerings developed in coordination with company affiliates.
• Identify and deliver existing or potential new business opportunities. Consults with customers and prospects to identify business development opportunities that meet customer needs.
• Establishes and implements strategic planning initiatives, marketing efforts, and sales process improvements in order to meet sales objectives and support overall strategic direction.
• Drive development/evaluation of market research to generate network and customer strategy recommendations to meet changing market and competitive conditions.
• Oversees product positioning and pricing strategies to produce the highest possible long-term profitability for newly expanded product portfolio.
• Ensures internal standards/compliance in place/adhered to for tender management process, sales reporting, contracting, marketing collateral.
• Actively recruit, develop, and retain talent while rigorously applying the performance management process.
• Responsible for overall Commercial, Sales & Service, Culinary, Retail, and Marketing budget for North America

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree from a four-year college or university required; Business, Economics, Math or Engineering majors required.
• An MBA with concentrations in Finance, Economics, Management Strategy, or Marketing preferred.

Work Experience:

• Minimum of 15 years work experience with progressive responsibility, ideally encompassing marketing, business development, strategic planning, sales, and/or operations.
• Prior experience in airline, airline catering, and/or strategy consulting industry highly preferred.
• Senior-level management track-record of successfully delivering against sales or growth targets; developing successful organizations; and negotiating complex, large-scale business to business deals.
• International experience and familiarity working in multi-cultural environments is a plus

Job Skills:

• Excellent presentation and communication skills, both written and oral
• Demonstrated ability to manage and develop team members
• Proficiency in structuring the work of others, designing research/analytic approach, formulating recommendations, presenting findings, and following-through on implementation.
• Deep understanding of quantitative analysis, research, and packaging of findings.
• Ability to develop integrated customer solutions, ensure customer satisfaction, and strengthen customer relationships.
• Aptitude to support the team in work planning, problem structuring, idea generation, and advanced financial and business analyses.
• Proficiency in development and preparation of multi-million dollar proposals including financial oversight, presentation development, etc.
• Ability to negotiate win-win outcomes with customers and partners, sometimes under adversarial circumstances
• In-depth knowledge of sales and marketing techniques and finance principles.
• Ability to anticipate, analyze and solve practical problems/issues at both a strategic and functional level.
• Willingness to travel.
• Proficiency in MS Office with particular strength in Excel and PowerPoint.

Communication Skills:

• Ability to extract pertinent data from several data points and produce effective, concise executive summaries.
• Ability to influence and persuade to achieve desired outcomes.
• Strong customer presence.
• Ability to communicate effectively through a variety of mediums with internal and external persons at all levels

Certificates, Licenses and Registrations:

• None

Travel:

• Frequent domestic and international travel may be required, occasionally on short notice.

Environmental Requirements:

• Extended work hours
• High degree of confidentiality
• Exposure to kitchen operations
• Domestic and International customer experience in an operational setting

Demonstrated Competencies to be Successful in the Position:

• Thinking - Information search and analysis, problem resolution skills
• Engaging - understanding others, team leadership, developing people
• Inspiring - influencing and building relationships, motivating and inspiring, communicating effectively
• Achieving - delivering business results under pressure, championing performance improvement, customer focus

Demonstrated Values to be Successful in the Position

Employees at gategroup are expected to live our Values of Excellence, Passion, Responsibility and Respect. To demonstrate these Values, we expect to observe the following from everyone:

• Excellence - We put the customer at the forefront of everything we do, taking time to understand their needs, wishes and desires.
• Passion - Hospitality, in its purest form comes down to a single, core principle: care We do everything with thoughtfulness, attention, and care.
• Responsibility - We are about what we do, and we understand the impact we have on others and the planet
• Respect - We respect each other’s voices and foster a workplace that supports inclusion and belonging. We are all ONE gategroup.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by the individual(s) assigned to this position. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and skills required. Management reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties and to assign other duties as necessary. In addition, reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position.

Candidates will be required to go through pre-employment drug screen, criminal check and/or airport fingerprinting.

Gate Gourmet is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer!

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If you want to be part of a team that helps make travel and culinary memories, join us!