Director, Customer Development Canada

Job Summary

The Hill’s Canada Customer Development Director is responsible for leading the Customer Development (CD) organization and defining, aligning, and executing the local Retail Environment, Customer and Shopper strategies. This role is accountable for delivering volume, share and financial targets while ensuring Hill’s brands are the most recommended, used, and trusted by professionals across Canada

The Customer Development Director leads a team of Territory Managers, Regional Sales Managers, Business Account Managers, Team Leaders, Retail Marketing Managers and eCommerce leaders. The role is responsible for building and maintaining relationships with key accounts and key influencers in the veterinary community is of the utmost importance, in addition to managing all top to top relationships with key Pet Retailers and Veterinary Corporate Groups.

The Hill’s Canada Customer Development Director is a key member of the Hill’s Canada Leadership Team, reporting directly to the General Manager and working in close collaboration with cross-functional leaders to achieve overall business objectives.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Define Customer Development country strategy by retail environment according to Division/Regional strategy

• Definition of priorities/goals by channel/function within the CD team in alignment with Global priorities.

• Participate in key steps of local Business Planning process

• Define and track commercial and financials KPI’s and ensure compliance with agreed plans

• Ensure perfect execution of plans by retail environment in alignment with Global priorities

• Manage and implement trade coverage strategy by Channel

• Participate in Global/Regional Customer Development team meetings/workshops; provide contribution in definition of Global Customer Development strategy

• Ensure compliance by the teams with policies, procedures and commercial selling principles.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain and Professional Veterinary Affairs to achieve overall business objectives.

• Increase capabilities of the sales team and implement training/coaching plans

• Represent Hill’s as a strategic partner of choice in small animal nutrition.

Skills and Competencies:

• Growth Mindset: Ability to operate in a fluid, cross-commercial environment where priorities and resources are optimized based on performance.

• Customer Development Leadership: Deep understanding of the Shopper journey & ‘Moments that Matter’ across the vet, Brick & Mortar and eCommerce channels, with a focus on leading and enabling field teams.

• Negotiation Skills: Proven ability to structure, lead, and close complex commercial agreements (e.g., Joint Business Plans, trade terms) that maximize profitability, drive volume growth, and build long-term, mutually beneficial customer partnerships.

• Analytical Proficiency: Ability to leverage AI-enabled internal and external tools and cross-commercial analytics to train teams on optimizing commercial plans & resource choices.

• Leadership & Team Building: Demonstrated ability to lead, motivate, and develop a high-performing sales organization.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Commerce, Marketing, or a related field

• Minimum 10+ years sales/commercial experience in a CPG industry

• 5+ years of leadership experience managing and developing high-performing, multi-levels customer development teams

• Experience in customer management and business development

• Demonstrated experience working across Omnichannel environments

• Track record of leading change, building capabilities, and coaching teams with a matrixed, cross-functional environment

• Fluent in oral and written English

Preferred Requirements:

• MBA or other relevant graduate degree (or equivalent combination of education and senior commercial experience)

• Pet industry experience

• French proficiency

Location

The position will be based at Hill’s Pet Nutrition/Colgate-Palmolive Canada company headquarters in Toronto. Interest in international career path preferred.

Position requires travel up to 30-40%. Posting is for an existing vacancy.