National Accounts Manager

McLane Classic Foods•Burleson, TX

6d•Onsite

About The Position

The National Accounts Manager drives long-term company growth by identifying and executing strategic opportunities to expand the company’s market footprint. The role explores new customers, categories, and channels while developing current customer relationships to increase distribution and menu share. The manager works cross-functionally to validate and execute initiatives that grow revenue, enhance market presence, and support company strategy across Food Service, Retail Food Service, and Co-Manufacturing. This position develops growth strategies for categories and target customers; builds customer relationships; provides solutions; sells incremental items; negotiates pricing and programs; and prioritizes work against market plans. It manages customer and product projects from ideation and qualification through commitment, commercialization, launch, and sales analysis, partnering with Culinary R&D, Supply Chain, and other teams. The manager is accountable for demand planning, forecasting, customer communications and issue resolution, project performance reporting, and managing travel and entertainment expenses. Travel is 30%–50%, as required.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, or a related field.
At least 7 years of outside sales experience in Food Service, Manufacturing, or Distributor Sales.
Strong understanding of custom manufacturing, project management, customer and consumer behavior, and competitive dynamics in Prepared Food Service.
Ability to develop in-depth knowledge of McLane Classic Foods processes and capabilities to support problem solving and customers.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels.
Initiative, follow-through, and a continuous-improvement mindset; able to make independent decisions in a fast-paced, demanding environment.
Strong strategic thinking, attention to detail, intermediate computer skills, financial acumen, and advanced negotiation skills.
Professional leadership, organization, coordination, and presentation skills.
Proven experience leading cross-functional teams to successful outcomes.
Demonstrates honesty, integrity, and strong moral principles; is entrepreneurial, intellectually curious, results-driven, and comfortable working autonomously or as part of a team.

Nice To Haves

Successful sales experience with custom or proprietary products and co-manufacturing.
Experience with Microsoft Office Suite, ERP systems, and Power BI.

Responsibilities

Identify new business opportunities in frozen Kettle Cooked Foods, including category expansion, channel growth, and entry into new markets.
Develop and execute growth strategies for categories and target customers in alignment with company goals and market trends.
Build customer relationships, provide solutions, sell incremental new items, negotiate pricing and programs, and prioritize efforts against market plans.
Manage cross-functional product and customer projects from ideation, qualification, and initiation through product cuttings, customer commitment, commercialization, and launch.
Coordinate product launches with Culinary R&D, Supply Chain, and other relevant teams.
Analyze sales, maintain item forecasts, achieve organizational profit goals, and mitigate finished-goods and packaging obsolescence during item transitions.
Serve as the primary McLane Classic Foods point of contact for customers, communicate with them, and lead customer issue resolution as the first line of defense.
Provide accurate demand-plan inputs to Supply Chain and address gaps against customer annual strategic plans, including seasonal and promotional ramps and ramp-downs.
Conduct market research and competitive analysis to identify trends, market gaps, and opportunities for differentiation.
Collaborate with Sales, Marketing, R&D, Operations, and other internal teams to execute and align on growth initiatives.
Track new partnership and project performance and report progress and business impact to senior leadership.
Manage the travel and entertainment budget.
Perform other duties as assigned.