Joseph Michael Acker Jr.

Responsible for directing and managing the entire sales process for the Great Lakes Region within Grocery channel representing the Hostess and Voortman Brands products. Customer responsibility included: Meijer, SpartanNash, Giant Eagle, Jewel-Osco, Marc's, Heinens, Winkler, Laurel, Forth Foods.

• Manage and direct all sales and trade activities for the Hostess Brands Portfolio.
• Execute annual sales and gross-profit plans by implementing brand marketing strategies, analyzing trends and results.
• Direct and measure both Broker and Distributor sales team by motivating, training, monitoring, and appraising job results.
• Drive and direct joint business planning initiatives and key innovation efforts.
• Finished 2023 at 102.3% to annual operating plan on Hostess and 100.7% on Voortman.
• Finalized the Meijer Hostess sweet baked goods planogram which contributed to net annual sales growth of +15% and growing annual Hostess dollar share +1.5pts.

Responsible for achieving assigned Smithfield regional sales goals and growth through effective sales planning and execution at Meijer and SpartanNash. Managed 3 Sales Account Managers to achieve sales targets. Emphasizes growth through development of new customers as well as the maintenance and growth of existing customers. Introduces and places new products with customers, executes organizational initiatives and drives sales of key items with strategic customers for long-term growth. Collaborates directly with our broker partners to drive consumer packaged goods execution, distribution and new item placement in respective territory.

• Manages Smithfield Broker relationships to increase distribution of product lines.
• Planned for Regional sales and assists with sales proposal developments, sales presentations and sales calls.
• Directs broker team thru meeting attendance and works within market to drive company initiatives in store.
• Implements and executes Smithfield sales plans to promote product lines.
• Utilizes syndicated data and all resources to drive sales plans.
• Maintains coordination with integral company functions to ensure sales objectives are met.
• Worked directly with customers and key decision makers to maintain and increase sales.

Lead a team of 57 field sales representatives, 6 District Managers, 6 Retail Merchandising Supervisors, 1 Sales Initiative Manager, 1 Retail Execution Manager to ensure execution of the sales strategy and achievement of annual KPIs and targets. Responsible for managing $204MM in annual revenue and full oversight of annual P&L.

• Manage, develop and motivate sales team and work closely with sales capability team to ensure delivery of training to team.
• Create and manage annual business unit plan to deliver agreed channel revenue KPI’s and targets and provide reporting as required.
• Manage winning customer business relationships that facilitate “best in industry” execution of Mondelez categories.
• Work closely with key stakeholders including account team, category, activation team, sales capability and customer finance to provide optimum return across assigned region.
• Fully understand category and insights knowledge, coaching team in use of category tools to engage and influence customers to make informed decisions that will grow our categories and deliver our annual plan.

Responsible for managing $193MM in annual revenue and $48MM in trade funding for Mondelez International biscuit and confections portfolio at both Meijer and Spartan Nash. This role encompasses collaboration with customer, retail, finance, sales planning, supply chain and other functional partners to develop and manage both day-to-day and long-term business plans. Also, I led a team of 4 customer category managers and 1 customer retail managers with full oversight of P&L.

• Develop and drive broad customer relationships across all levels with a key focus on building relationships at appropriate level within customer.
• Execute strategy for customer.
• Ensure delivery of JCBP (Joint Customer Business Plan).
• Optimize use of resources in order to obtain more profitability in operations.
• Understanding multiple customers, go-to market strategies, structure and business practices.

Responsible for managing $135MM in annual revenue and $26MM in trade funding for Mondelez International Biscuit portfolio at Meijer. This role encompasses collaboration with customer, retail, finance, sales planning, supply chain and other functional partners to develop and manage both day-to-day and long-term business plans. In this role, I managed 1 direct report (Customer Retail Manager) with responsibility for retail priorities, in-store execution, communication, and leakage between Mondelez International and Meijer corporate selling efforts.

• Develop and drive broad customer relationships across all levels with a key focus on building relationships at appropriate level within customer.
• Execute strategy for customer.
• Ensure delivery of JCBP (Joint Customer Business Plan).
• Optimize use of resources in order to obtain more profitability in operations.
• Grew revenue +5% vs. PY and gained +0.5 pts. of market share
• Understanding multiple customers, go-to market strategies, structure and business practices.

Responsible for managing $45MM in annual revenue and $10MM in trade funding for both the Mondelez International biscuit and confections portfolio selling efforts directly for Wegmans Food Markets. Developed relationships with Wegmans key category merchants to favorably influence and enhance Mondelez competitive position. Collaborate with category planners to design and implement customized programs to drive Mondelez revenue, consumption, and share. Provide updates to retail, CBT, and logistics regarding competitive activity and key market updates.

• Grew MDLZ 2018 biscuit gross revenue +6.7% vs. PY through promotional enhancements and leveraging annual joint business plan to secure additional displays.
• Delivered positive share gains in 2018 by growing MDLZ total biscuit dollar share +0.9 and dollar consumption +8.5%.
• Worked with category merchant to redesign 1H 2019 front end rack planogram which included evaluation of all manufacturers SKU assortment and performance. Front end candy/gum redesign resulted in space gains across Mondelez gum SKUs and sales shipments +5.0% YTD.

Recruit, train and develop 14 sales representatives to drive superior execution and performance at assigned retailers. Maximize net revenue growth through retail execution in shelving, pricing, promotions, product assortment and distribution.

• Grew overall business by +1% vs PY, grew retail share by 1.0 pt., and achieved 101% to objective through Month 10 2017.
• Managed labor budget results through utilization of deployment tools and resources such as iDeploy.
• Provided ongoing coaching and feedback to Sales Representatives through store audit tool, on-the-job coaching (Coaching App).

Lead the Canadian CBT and Retail analytical support team which consisted of 8 sales analysis. Provide assigned customer insights reporting and analytics to Canadian Customer Business Teams. Developed Nielsen consumption reporting and provided business knowledge support to the Canadian Shopper and Commercial Insight Team on all projects and/or requests.

• Created both simplification and standardization across Nielsen Corporate Consumption reporting.
• Partnered with Canada Director of Commercial Strategy and reporting team members to determine scope of request, sources for data, analytical tools, and communication tools required for projects.
• Created project documentation which included: timelines, status reports, critical paths, and database documentation.

Responsible for optimizing the deployment of labor hours to assigned Northeast retail sales teams by utilizing iDeploy and best practices. Developed weekly merchandising schedules for assigned retail teams. Collaboratively work-with District Sales Managers in deployment practices to optimize in-store opportunities.

• Finished 99.1% vs. labor budget for assigned teams in 2015.
• Created Cuberoute Opportunities and Added Stops Reports which is utilized to identify GPS/MOD inaccuracies for Northeast Region.
• Collaboratively worked with deployment team to create Northeast Region Overtime Tracker.

Responsible for support of District Manager in area of sales execution. Recruit, interview, and hire new talent. Responsible for on the job coaching as well as providing continuous learning and development for newly hired and current merchandising staff which consisted of 25 sales merchandisers.

• Finished 96% vs. Labor Budget in 2014.
• Effectively coordinate merchandising resources to ensure proper coverage on each given sales territory.
• Ensure all merchandising activities were properly executed at store level to support store programming.