Strategic Account Manager - Liberty Diversified International, Inc.

POSITION SUMMARY

With an intense focus on initiating, growing, and optimizing strategic customer relationships, this role leverages our value proposition to meet customer needs, leading to profitable growth and entrenching long-term partnerships.  Advocating on behalf of customers and LDI, our Strategic Account Manager leads the supply chain to streamline processes, overcome objections, solve problems, eliminate waste, and otherwise add uncommon value to both organizations; resulting in true customer-supplier partnerships that thrive.

This position reports to our Sales Director – Central Region and is located at our facility in Omaha, Nebraska.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Serve as the main point of contact for a portfolio of strategic customers for an assigned facility or division; develop and maintain relationships with critical customer contacts with purpose. Leverage relationships to drive enhanced value creation for the business and customer
• Utilize internal LDI partnerships in Design, Tooling, Customer Service, Pricing, Purchasing, Shipping, Production, and Scheduling to engineer custom packaging and supply chain solutions that meet the needs of our customers and prospective customers. Lead functional groups and customers through troubleshooting and solutioning of issues; quickly identify solutions to mitigate risk and/or impact to the customer and the company
• Leverage formal sales processes to identify needs, uncover customer pain points, align LDI capabilities with customer needs, and negotiate commercial terms for optimal impact and profitability. Utilize data-driven decision making to quantify market and customer-specific knowledge for purpose of closing business at highest profit margin
• Utilize formal (customer audits, Gemba walks, product reviews) and informal (meetings, site visits) methods to identify opportunities to improve customer relationship (improved OTD, improved quality, lower material costs, etc.) without negatively impacting margins
• Prospect, cultivate, and grow customer relationships and profitable revenue by building and managing the sales pipeline with new and existing strategic customers
• Partner with customers and internal partners (Design, Pricing, Customer Service, Shipping) to identify and deploy improvements to product design, manufacturing, delivery, and service workstreams
• Create and manage sales plans and strategies to deliver budgeted sales volume and margin. Participate in budgeting and forecasting processes and provide recurring business reviews and report-outs on strategic accounts including progress, gaps, opportunities, and strategies relative to sales volume and margin improvement opportunities
• Serve as a trusted market expert regarding products, solutions, customers, competitors, and supply chain trends; share critical information with stakeholders to influence pricing strategy, new product development, and manufacturing optimization
• Other duties, as assigned

REQUIRED EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

• Bachelor’s degree in Sales, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, or related field OR equivalent combination of education and experience
• 5+ years’ experience successfully developing and maintaining strategic customer relationships
• Experience translating customer-specific priorities into company success utilizing problem solving, critical thinking, and commercialization skills
• Excellent communication skills, conflict resolution, and decision-making skills
• Demonstrated experience with Microsoft Office (Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Ability to travel up to 60% of the time

PREFERRED EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

• Lean Six Sigma, Continuous Improvement, and/or Operational Excellence training, certification, and/or practical application experience
• Previous experience with advanced Microsoft Excel functions (pivot tables, VLOOKUP, Conditional Formatting, etc.)
• Experience reading rudimentary blueprints
• High level of financial acumen and mastery of business math

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Regular sitting, standing, and walking throughout the day to accomplish tasks
• Manual and finger dexterity used regularly with some repetitive finger motions
• Ability to work in front of a computer screen for long periods of time
• Specific vision abilities include close and distance vision; able to identify colors, small letters, and numbers; hand/eye coordination, depth perception and able to adjust focus
• Hearing and speaking
• Other conditions may include frequent reaching, stretching, pushing, pulling, pinching, grasping, and gripping.

about our company:

Comprised of multiple companies with headquarters in New Hope, Minnesota, Liberty Diversified International (LDI) is a privately held company employing more than 1,900 individuals across our manufacturing facilities, production facilities and core business operations in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, California, and Mexico. With deep roots in the corrugated box manufacturing industry, we operate in the core markets of paper, packaging, workplace products, corrugated plastics and building products.

Since 1918, our values – Caring, Innovation, Trust and Excellence – have guided our day-to-day activities. We believe that when our employees are aligned with these values, we create superior solutions and service for our customers. The LDI family of companies includes Liberty Packaging, Liberty Paper, Liberty Plastics (Custom Solutions and Quarrix Building Products) and Safco.

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Liberty Diversified International is an equal opportunity employer and makes all employment decisions without regard to race, color, sex, religion, age, creed, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, disability, or any other protected class.