Reference: DUR003537-SA-1

Our client, a leading national business operating within the wholesale and retail sector, seeks accomplished Retail Executives to provide strategic and commercial leadership across its food portfolio.

Reporting to the Merchandising Executive, the successful candidates will be responsible for developing multi-year portfolio strategies and delivering sustainable national and regional sales growth, margin improvement, private-label growth and long-term commercial value.

These senior leadership roles require extensive merchandising and category experience, strong financial acumen and the ability to align national, regional and functional stakeholders behind a common commercial strategy.

Duties & Responsibilities

THE PERSON

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce, Business, Economics, Supply Chain or a related field.

Experience:

• Minimum 10 years’ experience in senior merchandising, category or portfolio leadership.
• Direct accountability for a large-scale P&L, ideally involving a portfolio exceeding R1 billion.
• Strong grocery, FMCG wholesale or retail experience.
• Experience across edible groceries, fresh, perishables and/or frozen categories would be advantageous.
• Proven success in driving sales and margin growth across multiple categories.
• Private-label development and commercialisation experience.
• Extensive commercial negotiation experience involving major national suppliers.
• Experience leading Managers and influencing senior stakeholders within a complex matrix environment.
• Strong exposure to enterprise merchandising and planning systems.

Competencies:

• Exceptional commercial and financial acumen.
• Strong P&L management, scenario-modelling and margin-management capability.
• Ability to interpret customer, market and commercial insights and translate them into strategy.
• Advanced understanding of category management, pricing, promotions and assortment optimisation.
• Sound knowledge of demand planning, inventory efficiency and supply reliability.
• Strong supplier negotiation and relationship-management capability.
• Strategic, analytical, decisive and resilient.
• Customer- and shopper-focused.
• Executive presence with concise communication and presentation skills.
• Strong leadership, stakeholder influence and change-management capability.

THE ROLE

Portfolio Strategy and Financial Performance:

• Develop multi-year strategies across a substantial food portfolio.
• Translate portfolio strategy into clear national and regional commercial targets.
• Assume end-to-end accountability for sales, margin, contribution and P&L performance.
• Balance the advantages of national scale with regional shopper and market requirements.
• Monitor performance against budget and implement corrective action where required.

Category and Assortment Strategy:

• Define national and regional category strategies aligned with business objectives and shopper needs.
• Guide assortment, pricing, space productivity, SKU rationalisation and planogram strategies.
• Identify opportunities to scale high-potential products and address underperforming SKUs.
• Guide product lifecycles from introduction through to discontinuation.

Private Label and Product Development:

• Lead the portfolio’s private-label strategy and growth objectives.
• Oversee new-product development from the initial brief and costing through to quality approval, scale-up and margin delivery.
• Ensure products support the organisation’s brand positioning and customer promise.

Pricing, Promotions and Trade Effectiveness:

• Set the portfolio’s pricing and promotional direction.
• Govern promotional investment and trade spend to maximise returns while protecting margin.
• Guide price architecture, promotional cadence, markdown management and promotional effectiveness.
• Encourage commercial experimentation and scale successful initiatives.

Supplier and Commercial Negotiations:

• Lead strategic negotiations with major national suppliers.
• Negotiate cost prices, trading terms, commercial funding and service levels.
• Drive supplier segmentation, strategic sourcing, co-innovation and supplier risk management.
• Build supplier partnerships that support sustainable commercial performance.

Insights and Omnichannel Merchandising:

• Use customer, loyalty, segmentation and market insights to inform portfolio strategy.
• Apply forecasting, pricing and promotional analytics to commercial decision-making.
• Develop consistent assortment and pricing strategies across physical stores and digital channels.
• Partner with eCommerce teams to improve product content, discovery and conversion.

Supply Chain, Availability and Inventory:

• Partner with regional and supply-chain teams to improve demand planning and supply reliability.
• Drive replenishment strategies that improve on-shelf availability.
• Optimise inventory levels and stock turns.
• Evaluate the appropriate use of distribution-centre supply, direct supply and drop-shipment models.
• Identify and mitigate supply and availability risks.

Quality, Compliance and Sustainability:

• Ensure appropriate regulatory and product-quality governance.
• Support supplier quality assurance and recall readiness.
• Drive relevant sustainability objectives relating to packaging, responsible sourcing and waste.
• Ensure suppliers meet required legal, ethical and quality standards.

Leadership and Stakeholder Management:

• Lead and develop a high-performing team.
• Build merchandising and regional buying capability.
• Influence senior leaders and align Regional Merchandise, Supply Chain, Marketing, Finance, Retail Operations and eCommerce stakeholders.
• Lead cross-functional transformation, portfolio launches and continuous-improvement initiatives.

This opportunity will suit an established Food Retail Executive who combines strategic commercial leadership with a strong understanding of large-scale grocery retail or wholesale operations.