Sazerac Company Overview
Build your career at Sazerac! With almost 400 years of rich history, Sazerac Company has thrived as an independent, American family-owned business with operations in the United States and around the world. Since the 2000s, Sazerac has averaged double-digit growth each year! The company produces and markets some of the most award-winning bourbons and whiskeys globally, including Buffalo Trace, Pappy Van Winkle, Eagle Rare, Blanton’s, Traveller, and Sazerac Rye. Additionally, Sazerac owns many popular brands across a range of spirits, including Fireball, Svedka, Wheatley, BuzzBallz, Southern Comfort, Seagram’s V.O., Myers’s, Goldschläger, Parrot Bay, 99 Brand, and Platinum Vodka.
Company/Location Overview
Lucerne, Switzerland (Hybrid working model)
Job Description/Responsibilities
The Global Sales Strategist for the BuzzBallz Business Unit will be a key leader responsible for ensuring commercial readiness for launching and scaling in global markets. This role supports the Global Markets Director in defining the global playbooks for selling strategy and merchandising, while partnering closely with local teams to tailor approaches for their specific markets.
This position requires global insight, organizational skills, and strategic agility to uphold high standards of execution, speed to market, and effective problem-solving. The Global Sales Strategist will be an expert in selling BuzzBallz and will work skillfully with global commercial teams to elevate the organization through measurable impact and scalable recommendations.
Responsibilities
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Global Sales Strategy Leadership
- Define the global sales strategy, key tools/resources, and communication plan to enable fast and scalable growth across markets.
- Develop a region/market strategy that prioritizes efficiencies and directs resources to maximize overall global goals.
- Build analytical best practices for evaluating market and program performance, and utilize analytics to sharpen selling narratives.
- Support the Global AOP and long-term forecasting process by consolidating, benchmarking, and triangulating global data.
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Commercial Readiness & Management
- Oversee all elements of commercial readiness for market launch: assortment, pricing, local market legalities, and launch plan.
- Partner with local markets to develop the value chain and forecasting, supported by global best practices and benchmarking insights.
- Establish a methodology/reporting capability to track KPIs: volume, distribution, velocity, pricing compliance, AMP spend, etc.
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Global Sales Toolkit and Best Practices
- Create and maintain a world-class brand selling story/presentation that highlights the brand's potential and fosters partnerships with distributors/retailers.
- Facilitate monthly/quarterly training sessions to ensure all commercial partners are fully equipped to achieve their goals.
- Define channel-specific merchandising strategies and POS needs while collaborating closely with marketing partners to develop scalable creative toolkits.
- Establish new market launch plans that streamline market set-up and scaling processes.
- Collaborate with global teams on programming and case studies for global reapplication.
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Global Insights and Innovation
- Centralize global market insights, trends, and competitive assessments into actionable commercial opportunities.
- Keep the team informed about global risks and opportunities driven by macroeconomics, policy changes, and category performance.
- Identify innovation opportunities based on local insights to maximize regional and global scales.
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Channel and Key Customer Strategy
- Develop a centralized strategy for Global Key Customers (Circle K, 7 Eleven, Oxxo, Zabka, GS25) to enhance negotiation, selling, planning, and execution standards.
- Create channel-specific merchandising strategies and collaborate with marketing to produce POS tools for key channels including Convenience, Cash & Carry, and Food.
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Stakeholder & Executive Alignment
- Deliver concise and timely written recommendations and highlight any pressing issues.
- Provide updates to the President of BuzzBallz BU, President of Global Sales, and Director of Global BuzzBallz.
- Build strong partnership relationships with Global General Managers and RSMs, ensuring accountability to their needs and representing their opportunities effectively.
Qualifications/Requirements
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or advanced business degree preferred.
- 8–12+ years in sales strategy, commercial planning, category management, or global sales enablement in beverage alcohol, RTDs, FMCG/CPG, or fast-moving consumer goods.
- Proven experience supporting global market expansion or multi-country commercial frameworks.
- Strong understanding of distributor networks, route-to-market models, and channel strategies.
- Track record of developing sales tools, playbooks, and training programs that drive measurable results.
- Experience managing commercial data, dashboards, and performance reporting.
- Strategic thinker who can simplify complexity across global markets.
- Exceptional communicator with the ability to influence without authority.
- Builder mentality with a knack for creating new systems, processes, and toolkits from scratch.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret market data and turn it into actionable insights.
- Highly collaborative and comfortable working across cultures, functions, and time zones.
- Strong presentation and training facilitation skills.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in South America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions.
- Multilingual skills (Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, French).
- Experience in RTDs, spirits, beer, seltzers, or related categories.
To apply, please apply online using the form below. Only applications matching the job profile will be considered.