Assistant Manager - Trade & Shopper Marketing (Sri Lanka)
Your Role
The Assistant Manager – Trade & Shopper Marketing is responsible for driving effective execution of trade and shopper marketing initiatives to enhance in-store visibility, shopper engagement, and conversion across channels.
The role focuses on planning, execution, tracking, and optimization of trade activations and promotional programs, working closely with Sales, Marketing, and Commercial Operations teams. The incumbent plays a key role in ensuring that commercial and brand strategies are translated into impactful in-market execution, delivering measurable business outcomes in terms of sales uplift and visibility.
Your Key Task
1. Trade & Shopper Marketing Execution
- Execute trade marketing and shopper activation plans across General Trade, Modern Trade, and emerging channels
- Support rollout of promotional campaigns including product launches, display drives, and shopper programs
- Ensure best-in-class execution of POSM, merchandising standards, and in-store visibility
- Drive initiatives to improve shopper conversion and category growth at point of sale
2. Promotion Planning & Deployment
- Support development and execution of monthly and quarterly promotional calendars
- Align trade activities with brand campaigns and commercial priorities
- Coordinate with sales teams and distributors to ensure timely and effective execution
- Track readiness and speed-to-market for all activations and campaigns
3. Performance Tracking & ROI Management
- Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of trade promotions and shopper programs
- Track sales uplift, execution quality, and ROI on trade investments
- Develop post-promotion analysis and recommend improvements for future campaigns
- Support tracking of trade spend vs. budget and ensure compliance with guidelines
4. In-Store Visibility & Merchandising Excellence
- Ensure consistent execution of visibility standards across key outlets and channels
- Drive compliance on planograms, display guidelines, and retail excellence metrics
- Coordinate with merchandising teams and agencies to maintain execution quality
- Continuously identify opportunities to enhance in-store presence and shopper experience
5. Cross-Functional Coordination
- Work closely with Sales, Marketing, and Commercial Operations teams
- Ensure alignment between brand objectives and in-market execution
- Collaborate with supply chain and finance teams to ensure operational readiness
- Support integration of trade plans into broader commercial planning cycles
6. Agency & Vendor Management
- Coordinate with activation agencies, POSM suppliers, and merchandising teams
- Ensure timely delivery of materials and campaign assets
- Monitor agency performance and execution quality
- Support cost control and efficiency in trade marketing activities
Skills and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business Administration, or related field
- 3–5 years of experience in Trade Marketing, Shopper Marketing, or Sales/Commercial roles
- Strong understanding of FMCG channel dynamics in Sri Lanka
- Experience in planning and executing retail activations and promotions
- Good analytical and reporting skills (Excel, dashboards, performance tracking)
- Strong coordination and stakeholder management capabilities
- High attention to detail with strong execution discipline
Who we are looking for
- Bias for action, drive for results
- Networking and influencing
- A strong sense of ownership and accountability
- Organisationally and analytically strong
- High level of resilience and problem solving
- A dot connector
- Curiosity: A customer centric mindset.
- Ability to perform under tight deadlines
- Relevant values, drivers for this role
- Performance and growth mindset
- Agility to thrive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world
- Flexibility to drive change
- Transparency and openness
- Passionate about Tea