Job Description

About the Job:

Position: Trade Marketing & Distribution Manager.

Industry: Manufacturing- Cigarettes (FMCG)

Location:

Jebel Ali Freezone, Dubai, UAE.

Reports to:

Director of Global Sales & Commercial Growth.

Travel:

Frequent regional travel required.

About the Role:

Are you an expert in trade marketing and distribution with a knack for designing smart Route-to-Market strategies? At GTI, you'll lead the charge in expanding our market reach and elevating brand visibility across diverse channels. Your deep commercial insight and hands-on approach will ensure our products are available, visible, and competitively positioned in each market.

What You Will Do:

Route-to-Market:

Assess, design, and implement

Route to Market (RTM)

strategies tailored to each market's regulatory, commercial, and logistical context. Analyze and optimize existing distributor setups, suggesting alternative coverage models when needed. Identify white space and design commercial approaches to

expand GTI's availability and reach.

Lead market visits and trade audits to validate distributor execution and provide structured feedback.

Trade Marketing & Visibility:

Build and deploy GTI's

Trade Marketing Toolkit

across priority markets covering product visibility, shelf standards, and brand guidelines. Collaborate with distributors and internal teams to align on

channel-specific execution plans

, including merchandising, POSM deployment, and campaign activations. Conduct regular

in field audits

to monitor compliance with GTI's merchandising and planogram guidelines. Define visibility metrics per channel and track them against target execution KPIs.

Pricing, Trade Support & Commercial Control:

Design and manage

price structures

that captures the value chain while respecting

trade margins

and

tax frameworks

Monitor

price compliance

across markets and flag deviation risks. Develop, roll out, and evaluate

trade support programs

(e.g., incentive schemes, rebates, activations) in collaboration with Distributors. Support annual distributor negotiations and define execution clauses for new partnerships.

Distribution KPIs & Performance Tracking:

Define and track

in-market distribution KPIs

, including: + Product availability.
+ Visibility standards.
+ Route-to-market coverage.
+ Trade support deployment.
+ Stock coverage & freshness.
Build reporting templates with support from the Demand Analyst to review monthly performance per market/distributor. Monitor competitor presence, pricing, and activities using structured retail intelligence and distributor feedback.

Forecasting Support & Cross-functional Collaboration:

Collaborate with the

Demand Planning Analyst

to feed market-level intelligence and performance insights into forecast assumptions. Contribute to the

Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)

cycle by validating distributor pipeline, promotional plans, and field realities. Align with Supply Chain, Sales, and Finance to maintain visibility across execution, inventory, and cost management. Participate in the development of

new market entry plans

, advising on trade set-up, coverage potential, and resource needs.

Required Skills To Be Successful:

Deep understanding of

trade marketing execution

and

distribution frameworks

, ideally across multiple emerging markets and Duty Free channel. Strong commercial acumen with experience designing

pricing structures

and managing trade spend. Proven ability to develop and enforce

price compliance

and execution standards. Capable of building KPIs and

measuring trade performance

through dashboards and field insights. Hands-on approach with the ability to work across structured and

unstructured distributor environments.

Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.

What We're Looking For:

7+ years in Trade Marketing, Distribution Management, or RTM execution -- tobacco industry experience preferred. Strong commercial acumen with proven pricing and trade spend management skills. Ability to enforce price compliance and trade execution standards. Expertise in KPI development and trade performance measurement. Hands-on, proactive approach in distributor environments, structured and unstructured. Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship management skills. Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, or Commercial Management. * Fluent English; additional languages a plus.