Role Purpose :

The Trade Marketing Head will be responsible for driving channel growth, strengthening in-market execution, and building winning trade strategies across General Trade, Modern Trade, E-commerce, and Emerging Channels for a large FMCG organization. The role will partner closely with Sales, Marketing, Category, Supply Chain, and Finance teams to deliver market share growth, visibility excellence, and profitable business expansion.

The incumbent will lead national trade marketing strategy, customer activation, shopper programs, channel development initiatives, and execution excellence across regions.

Key Responsibilities :

Trade Marketing Strategy :

- Develop and implement annual and long-term trade marketing strategy aligned with business objectives.

- Drive channel-wise growth plans for General Trade, Modern Trade, E-commerce, and Institutional channels.

- Design trade activation frameworks to improve market penetration, visibility, and conversion.

- Lead go-to-market initiatives, new product launch activation, and category expansion programs.

Channel & Customer Development :

- Build differentiated channel strategies based on shopper and customer insights.

- Partner with sales leadership to improve numeric and weighted distribution.

- Drive visibility enhancement programs including POSM, merchandising, and in-store branding.

- Develop customer-specific activation plans for key accounts and large retail chains.

Shopper Marketing :

- Lead shopper insight generation and convert insights into impactful activation programs.

- Drive consumer promotions, loyalty programs, and in-store engagement initiatives.

- Ensure strong execution of campaigns across touchpoints to improve offtake.

Commercial & ROI Management :

- Manage trade spends, promotion budgets, and visibility investments effectively.

- Track ROI of trade schemes, activations, and promotions.

- Improve trade effectiveness and optimize channel profitability.

- Drive data-led decision-making through sales analytics and market intelligence.

Execution Excellence :

- Ensure high-quality execution across regions through strong governance and tracking mechanisms.

- Build execution scorecards, KPIs, and monitoring systems.

- Lead market audits, competition tracking, and retail excellence initiatives.

- Collaborate with field sales teams to ensure seamless implementation of plans.

Team Management :

- Lead and mentor a large trade marketing team across regions.

- Build strong cross-functional collaboration with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, and Category teams.

- Develop high-performance culture with focus on innovation, agility, and accountability.

Key Deliverables :

- Channel growth and market share expansion

- Improvement in visibility and in-store execution standards

- Higher ROI on trade spends and promotions

- Successful execution of NPD and category launches

- Strengthening shopper engagement and conversion

- Improved distribution and retail activation effectiveness

Desired Candidate Profile

Experience :

- 15-22 years of experience in FMCG industry.

- Strong experience in Trade Marketing, Channel Marketing, Sales Strategy, or Shopper Marketing.

- Experience handling large-scale FMCG businesses with multi-channel exposure.

- Prior experience managing national trade marketing operations preferred.

- Strong understanding of GT, MT, E-commerce, and rural distribution models.