Manager, Sales Operations (Food Services)

Mars•Chicago, IL

11d•$108,160 - $148,720

About The Position

The Manager, Sales Operations, Away From Home leads critical sales communication, field engagement, commercial technology, and merchandising support capabilities for the Foodservice sales organization. This role keeps cross-functional teams informed and aligned, ensures sales support platforms effectively meet commercial needs, and manages the resources and processes that enable consistent field execution. The manager serves as a central connection point across Sales, Marketing, Trade, Supply Chain, Finance, Customer Service, IT, external vendors, and technology partners.

Requirements

Demonstrated experience in sales operations, commercial enablement, field communications, technology ownership, or a related business function.
Strong written, verbal, presentation, and meeting-facilitation skills, with the ability to translate cross-functional information into clear, actionable sales communications.
Experience gathering business requirements, prioritizing technology enhancements, coordinating user testing, and partnering with IT or technology vendors.
Experience supporting Foodservice, Away From Home, consumer packaged goods, or another field-based selling organization.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in business, communications, marketing, sales operations, information systems, or a related field, or equivalent relevant professional experience
Experience managing merchandising programs, external vendors, budgets, or field resource deployment.
Familiarity with sales enablement, reporting and analytics, QR-code solutions, sample management platforms, SharePoint, or emerging AI-enabled commercial tools.

Responsibilities

Lead sales communications and field engagement: Develop and execute a comprehensive communication strategy that keeps the Foodservice sales organization informed, aligned, and focused on execution priorities. Lead bi-weekly sales update calls and manage recurring field communications, including “What’s New” updates and newsletters.
Develop leadership and sales meeting content: Create meeting agendas, presentations, and action-item follow-up for field communication meetings. Support leadership presentations and sales meeting content development while maintaining communication calendars and execution timelines.
Coordinate cross-functional commercial updates and calendarization: Consolidate information from Sales, Marketing, Trade, Supply Chain, Finance, and Customer Service. Ensure consistent communication of sales initiatives, product launches, programs, priorities, and process changes across the organization.
Own sales support technology and platform strategy: Serve as the business owner for commercial technology and sales support platforms. Develop technology roadmaps, prioritize enhancements and issue resolution, facilitate requirements gathering and testing, and monitor platform adoption, utilization, and effectiveness. Platform responsibilities include Telus email functionality, Scanbuy, Nvision, reporting and analytics tools, sample management platforms, and future sales enablement and AI solutions.
Manage technology and vendor partnerships: Build productive relationships with technology providers and external vendors. Partner with IT on integrations, upgrades, governance, user access, and system support. Vendor relationships include Racks Inc., Great Northern, Siffron, and Kubik.
Lead merchandiser program administration: Create, maintain, and track Foodservice merchandiser resources. Manage field assignments, deployment processes, sales team requests, activity reporting, and communication. Monitor utilization and execution effectiveness while supporting annual planning and budgeting for merchandising initiatives.