Director, Strategic Retail Alliances

This position is remote/virtual and can be done from anywhere in the United States.

Job Summary:

This role will partner with and through owners, WinField United leadership, and basic manufacturers who participate in the Strategic Retail Alliance initiative. The role will lead coordination of strategic relationships, manage resources and activities, negotiate agreements, and execute retail improvement strategies that align and complement the WinField United distribution agreement offers across crop protection, seed, CN and services.

The role is responsible for coordination of upstream advocacy with manufacturers to result in successful realization of R&D investment, development of demand creation activities, and stewardship of lifecycle management to continually strip out cost. By linking the market access and gateway business model to the manufacturer, this role will help shape the Seed and CPP marketplace alongside our retailer partners. 

This role will drive change by having a clear vision for adapting the traditional 3-step distribution model, building relevance for the cooperative system, and articulating the case for strategic transformation in order to drive future growth and maintain our competitive edge.

In addition, this role will be a key partner in leading strategic, cross-functional workstreams among supply partners such as Bayer & Corteva as well as across the Land O’Lakes Enterprise. Driven by a collaborative mindset, this position will need to drive strategic initiatives (Total Acre, Supply Chain Optimization, etc.) while creating and maintaining a partnership minded SRA model across the retail system. 

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, Finance or Business-related field

• 15+ years of progressive experience in crop protection, manufacturer partnerships and/or agronomy sales

• Proven experience negotiating large revenue ag product sales agreements/contracts

• Knowledge of cooperative concepts and experience working with cooperative leadership teams and boards

• Demonstrated experience in M&A transactions, P&L ownership and/or risk management

• Retail agriculture business improvement consulting experience preferred

• Project management experience

• Experience managing company-wide cross functional projects 

• Influence skills to rally the retailers toward the alignment model

Competencies-Skills (Required):  

• Excellent oral and written communication and negotiation skills 

• Ability to synthesize strategic thinking into client implications and programs 

• Consultant mindset to make complicated concepts simple to understand 

• Ability to juggle multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment and execute and deliver results in a timely manner 

• Strong people leadership skills both within a reporting structure as well as a peer or non-reporting structure 

• Proactively manages company leadership expectations and competing priorities 

• Ability to create a positive work …