Manufacturing & Business Development Services Expert
Steve’s diverse sales experiences began with direct account responsibilities for Prudential, 3M and Beiersdorf Inc. At Beiersdorf, he quickly established himself as a sales innovator moving through a series of account and sales management positions before becoming the Director of National Field Sales. Here he developed the company’s first Trade Marketing, Category Management, Broker Operations and National Sales Training Departments that would help define the company’s future culture. The Trade Marketing & Category Management Departments were quickly adopted by Beiersdorf AG where he was asked to lead several international seminars in Southeast Asia and Mexico. The Broker Operations department, designed to leverage an underdeveloped Food COT, quickly resulted in double-digit growth and a staggering increase in distribution. In this role, he managed a team that included Zone Managers, Broker Operations, Retail Services, Headquarter Sales, Sales Promotions, and National Training. In total, this team accounted for $120 million in sales, a $7 million fixed cost budget, a $12 million coop budget and a $6 million promotional budget.
In addition to his line responsibilities, Steve orchestrated the successful merger of the Beiersdorf and Futuro sales forces creating a unified sales team that included members of both organizations and coordinated a company wide restructure tasked with refocusing all department’s efforts on delivering the highest quality of service to their customers.
In addition to his traditional sales responsibilities, Steve has worked diligently to establish standard operating procedures for managing account planning, coop spending, and promotional program development and implementation that resulted in consistent, profitable account growth. The foundation of this approach was established 20+ years ago when he began to manage accounts with individual P&L’s and rewarding his sales team for successfully managing all aspects of an account’s development. Most recently, Steve worked with CCA Industries Inc. to establish planning and spending controls to improve overall corporate profitability.
His current area of focus is extremely diverse, ranging from traditional account development to improving operational efficiencies to international sales development.