Territory Development Manager - Cleveland

Territory Development Manager – Unilever Food Solutions

Location: Remote – Cleveland, OH

Unilever Food Solutions (UFS) is the €3bn+ food service division of Unilever. It leads the dynamic food‑service market across its categories and has ambitious growth objectives, marketing a range of professional food and beverage products and services to operators across 72 countries. UFS creates value for customers through culinary solutions and improves the food experience for everyone from distributors to diners.

UFS is accelerating its digital transformation to fuel growth through data‑driven and technology‑enabled go‑to‑market capabilities. Our global ambition is to reach 3 million operators by 2030 via an online & offline contact strategy. In the US, UFS Customer Development and Marketing engages customers uniquely to generate demand for our professional brands and create long‑term value for partners.

• Pay range: $69,360 – $104,040
• Bonus eligible
• LTI eligible
• Health, life, disability insurance; retirement savings; parental leave; paid vacation & holidays; and voluntary benefits.

As a Territory Development Manager, you will drive sustainable business growth through operators, chains, and trade partner engagement. You will be part of a multi‑touchpoint integrated digital ecosystem to grow with new (reach) and current (penetration) customers, using data and CRM tools to plan and execute sales calls, establish yourself as a valuable partner, and grow market share in your territory.

You will be accountable for delivering business targets such as sales growth, reach & penetration, digital engagement, and customer presentations with operators and distributor trade partners. Your responsibilities include executing a multi‑touchpoint contact strategy online and face‑to‑face, generating demand for Food Solutions products, and delivering an exceptional customer experience through virtual culinary consultation.

• Engage local chain accounts and operator customers, delivering business targets for the assigned territory (turnover, reach, penetration, digital, fully profiled operators, demos, sampling).
• Implement a full key account management approach: execute CBP, win & retain funnel, contact matrix, and multi‑touchpoint contact strategy (20% online, 80% F2F).

• Convert business insights into activation solution selling.
• Create concept solution selling using market trends.
• Lead customers to the right solution.
• Network with key stakeholders to engage decision makers.
• Prepare visits with solution recommendations and manage workflow in Salesforce.
• Conduct F2F and virtual sampling, ideation, cooking demos using culinary knowledge to secure new opportunities or increase volume usage.
• Follow up on previous calls to ensure opportunities progress to close.
• Secure and coordinate customer orders each month to meet growth targets.
• Meet with distributors/trade partners to expand assortment and source leads for customer follow‑through.
• Build and nurture relationships with local distributor sales reps.
• Implement contact matrix for key trade customers, promoting effective customer management.
• Engage trade customers to gain alignment for secondary sales data.
• Implement promotions related to key seasons and events.
• Ensure timely submission and settlement of claims.

• Hunter mentality with a strong hunting vs farming balance (70/30).
• Fast adopter of contemporary technology, proficient in AI, MS Office, Power BI, and Excel.
• Entrepreneurial, proactively creating mutually beneficial solutions.
• Curious, constantly learning from the market to stay ahead of food trends.
• Skilled in selling premium brands with superior sales stories and culinary solutions.
• Bonus:
  Bilingual (Spanish, Mandarin) – a plus.

• CPG food‑service B2B sales experience.
• Culinary/chef selling experience.
• Network of existing food‑service operator partners.
• Distributor, ingredient, or broker sales experience.
• CRM (Salesforce) experience.
• Operator experience.
• Market/geographical knowledge.
• Food university background (CIA, Food & Hospitality).
• Experience in a multi‑national corporate…