Director of Foodservice - Berkeley Culinary
About The Position
The Director of Foodservice – Hospitality & Leisure serves as the primary commercial leader responsible for driving growth across Whitsons’ hospitality, leisure, and destination-based foodservice segments. This role leads sales strategy and execution for customers including entertainment venues, attractions, travel & leisure operators, hospitality groups, and other experiential dining environments. This role is entrepreneurial in nature and requires a highly motivated, self-starting sales leader with a strong growth-oriented mindset. The ideal candidate is energized by building new relationships, opening new market opportunities, and expanding Whitsons’ presence within hospitality, leisure, and destination-based foodservice environments. Success in this role requires creativity, resilience, and the ability to operate with autonomy while effectively influencing cross-functional partners to deliver innovative, scalable, and experience-driven foodservice solutions.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Sales, Marketing, or related field required.
- Minimum 7 years of progressive sales experience within CPG, retail, private label, or co-manufacturing.
- Demonstrated success managing national or regional retail accounts.
- Proven ability to meet or exceed revenue targets consistently.
- Experience presenting to senior leadership and customer decision makers.
- Strong background in interpreting syndicated data and retail analytics.
- Experience leading complex negotiations and multi-stakeholder commercial processes.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
- Familiarity with CRM platforms for pipeline management and reporting.
Nice To Haves
- MBA preferred.
Responsibilities
- Develop and execute the hospitality & leisure foodservice sales strategy, including new customer acquisition, portfolio expansion, and annual revenue planning.
- Identify growth opportunities within destination dining, seasonal operations, and experiential foodservice environments.
- Translate customer and market insights into actionable commercial strategies and pipeline forecasts.
- Build and maintain senior-level relationships with hospitality operators, venue leadership, and foodservice decision-makers.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to customers by delivering tailored solutions that balance experience, quality, speed, and scalability.
- Lead customer presentations, contract discussions, and executive-level business reviews.
- Own the full sales lifecycle, including prospecting, proposal development, pricing strategy, contract negotiation, and close.
- Partner with Operations, Culinary, Supply Chain, QA, and Finance to ensure operational readiness and successful program execution.
- Maintain disciplined pipeline management, forecasting accuracy, and documentation.
- Monitor hospitality and leisure industry trends, consumer behaviors, and competitive activity.
- Leverage data and customer insights to support concept development, menu strategies, and service models.
- Provide market feedback internally to support innovation and continuous improvement.
- Partner closely with Operations and Culinary to ensure programs meet service expectations in high-volume and dynamic environments.
- Collaborate with Finance and Legal on pricing models, contract structures, and bid responses.
- Support internal stakeholders with customer insights and growth intelligence.
Benefits
- health
- dental
- vision
- 401(k) with company match
- generous PTO
- paid holidays
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
Number of Employees
1,001-5,000 employees
