Director of Sales

About this role

Who We Are:
Banza reimagines your favorite comfort foods, like pasta, pizza, mac & cheese, and waffles, using chickpeas. Why? Because we know chickpeas aren’t just delicious; they’re also one of the most nutritious and sustainable foods. Yet 80% of the country isn’t eating enough of them. Our mission is to inspire people to eat more chickpeas and other beans, making a positive impact on human health and the environment. Banza is the #1 better-for-you pasta brand in the country, and our products are available in over 21,000 stores nationwide. We’ve been named one of TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year, Adweek’s Best Food Brand, and are proud to have fans at Good Morning America, The New York Times, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, and more.
Your Mission: Banza is looking for a Director of Sales to lead how we profitably grow across a portfolio of retail accounts, and to build lasting partnerships with our customers.
Selling at Banza is a team effort. Our best results come when the whole team, internal and external stakeholders alike, is pulling in the same direction: building the category story, getting the forecast right, landing the promotion well, connecting with the consumer at the shelf, and ensuring productivity in how we grow. This is a chance to help shape how we do that as we grow, and we’re looking for someone who’s excited by that level of ownership.
We’re also investing well ahead of our size in how we use data and AI. A single connected view of the business, and tools that handle much of the preparation and analysis that usually consumes a commercial team’s week. In practice that means more of your time goes to the partner and the decision, and less to assembling the inputs.
What You’ll Do:

• Strategic portfolio management: Own the results across a portfolio of accounts. Understand the most valuable role Banza can play for each partner and how that aligns with Banza’s long-term objective, and executing a disciplined investment strategy to navigate there by optimizing Banza’s intersection with each retail partner and how we allocate both time and money.

• Understand what makes each partner tick: Seek to understand each retailer’s strategy and operating model, and how we can best align with it. Then work to bring that perspective into our shared context, so the whole team is navigating from the same understanding of what each partner is seeing and what winning looks like for them.

• Build relationships that last: Build strong relationships for Banza across each retail partner, so that joint business planning and continuity hold over the long term. Decide how Banza works with external partners at each account, including brokers. We use brokers at some accounts today and are evaluating where to add more.

• Communicate strategically: Communicate in person, by phone, email and text to strengthen our partner relationships and keep us aligned.

• Build compelling, data-grounded stories: Build stories for our customers that reflect the partner’s perspective: what they are seeing, and how it aligns with a win/win for the future. Partner with our category management and analytics teams, make full use of our AI capabilities, and deliver the story persuasively.

• Build and execute an investment strategy with our retail partners:Manage the portfolio in a way that is fair and equitable, while allocating investment toward the partners that most predictably drive future growth in cash flow.

• Document and plan with each retailer: Align on how we invest and maintain compliance. Clear, documented plans are what allow us to automate visibility into any differences between execution and expectations, automate the actions we take in response, and automate deduction matching and the dispute process, so that spend stays efficient and consistent with what we agreed.

• Proactively identify areas for improvement: Find opportunities across your accounts that represent a win/win for Banza and the retailer: new distribution, price optimization, product placement, promotional effectiveness.

• Work cohesively with internal partners: Work with internal partners o n planning and analytical inputs, and provide shared context on any signals that change the probability of outcomes, so the team can align behind supporting our retail partners.

Who You Are:We’re building a commercial team out of complementary strengths rather than a single profile. What we care about most is how you think, what you’ve learned, and whether you want to win as part of a team, so if your background doesn’t look like a straight line to this role, we’d still very much like to hear from you.

• BA/BS with 7 to 10 years of progressive experience in commercial roles. We’re open to a range of paths: account management, category management, revenue growth management or trade strategy on the brand side, or category management at a retailer

• Experience from big CPG, a high-growth brand, a retailer, or some combination

• You’ve helped grow a brand or category without a large budget behind it; that experience tells us a lot

• You’re curious about why things work; you can take apart a result and explain what actually drove it

• Strong planning and customer management skills across multiple customers at once, with excellent analytical skills and attention to detail

• Substantial experience with syndicated and retailer data (Circana/IRI, Nielsen, SPINS, 84.51, retailer portals). Comfort with SQL, BI tools or AI-assisted analysis is a plus, not a requirement

• Excellent verbal, written and presentation skills

• Strong knowledge of the food retail environment and practices

• Willingness to be flexible, adaptable and proactive in a constantly changing industry and company. Our commercial approach is evolving, and you’ll help shape it

• Self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced environment

• Ability to travel up to 50% of the time if needed

To ApplyWrite a cover letter describing why you want to join Banza and why you would be an…