Marcus Souza

• Lead retail customer teams to drive top and bottom-line growth, market share expansion, and associate development through multi-year strategies.
• Manage a $3B portfolio and a team of 15 associates, ensuring resource alignment and budgetary management for profitable growth.
• Oversee budgets across Trade, Marketing Services, Retail Media, Logistics, and Non-Working to deliver profitable business plans.
• Influence internal functions to deliver innovation and activation plans aligned with customer needs. Collaborate with teams to accelerate business growth between Mars Pet Nutrition and Walmart.
• Cultivate an inclusive, high-performing team culture, ensuring all associates perform at their best.
• Foster collaborative relationships with Walmart to achieve business objectives and customer satisfaction. Lead Advanced Strategic Partnership (ASP).
• Develop and manage store format strategies, coordinating with cross-functional teams to support critical tactic execution.
• Provide customer input into go-to-market strategies, including new item launches, trade deployment, and pack creation.
• Lead strategy planning and develop new processes to enhance customer planning and alignment with business goals.

Key Responsibilities:

• Responsible for driving sales across diverse channels such as online, offline, direct and indirect.
• Effectively oversaw Business Unit P&L as a collective duty.
• Led a team of 350 highly engaged associates.
• Managed and allocated resources for innovation projects including Consumer Promotion, Display and Equipment, Trade Spend, and Overheads.
• Acted as the local spokesperson to Regional/Global Teams on growth strategies.

Key Achievements:

• Achieved consecutive double-digit growth with market share gains of +240 bps.
• Led a highly engaged Sales and Marketing team through the challenges of the pandemic.
• Drove profitable mix improvement, growing 4X faster than the core business.
• Defined and implemented a Sales Career Roadmap, establishing a clear succession plan.
• Spearheaded the fastest growth market globally within E.Comm during 2021.
• Earned global recognition as the best emerging market team for Pet Nutrition in programs like Strategic Revenue Management, Category Leadership, and Perfect Store.

• Developed team building activities to foster collaboration among departments during a challenging year.
• Provided leadership during times of organizational change or crisis situations.
• Developed roadmaps that clearly outline key milestones and deliverables to effectively execute strategies.
• Established KPIs related to strategy performance, tracked results, and communicated insights internally.
• Evaluated existing processes, policies, systems, and structures in order to recommend improvements that will optimize operations.

• Developed and executed strategic plans and operating targets for the Key Account team.
• Drove significant improvements in ROI, compliance, and governance for trade investments.
• Effectively executed brand initiatives, aligning Key Account needs with overall portfolio strategy.
• Implemented cost-saving measures to enhance customer service efficiency.
• Collaborated closely with global partners to ensure strategic alignment and high-quality execution of global initiatives.

• Led innovation projects for MARS Petcare Brazil, driving new product development and market introduction.
• Represented the region in global initiatives, ensuring alignment with global strategies.
• Developed and executed launch plans for new brand activations, increasing market penetration.

• Bridged Sales, Marketing, and other functions to synchronize brand and customer strategies, optimizing profitable sales and brand value.
• Led the annual activation plan for MARS Petcare brands, including consumer promotions, trade spend, and displays.
• Created and executed sales launch plans for new products and brands, driving successful market entry.
• Defined and implemented POS execution standards, establishing the Picture of Success framework.

• Delivered the operational plan for Walmart Group within the company, ensuring strategic alignment.
• Managed Walmart's business in Brazil across 8 different banners and 500 stores.
• Led the development and execution of the annual Joint Business Plan.
• Implemented RB’s brand strategies, executed promotional activities, and evaluated promotion results.
• Contributed to the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) cycle, enhancing forecasting and planning.
• Oversaw sales fundamentals, including distribution and in-store positioning for an average of 400 SKUs.

• Achieved operational targets and drove performance improvements for the indirect channel.
• Developed and executed the "Go to Market" strategy for RB Mexico’s traditional channel.
• Established performance standards and control methods, implementing effective performance measures.
• Optimized trade investments to maximize ROI.
• Strategized and planned for the next three years, setting growth targets and designing channel structure.

• Created and implemented performance strategies for wholesalers and distributors, meeting volume, profitability, market share, and distribution goals.
• Increased numerical distribution of top SKUs, driving significant growth.
• Managed trade investments to ensure a high return on investment.
• Led initiatives to enhance distributor performance through the Excellence Plan.

• Executed sales strategies and improved numerical distribution within the territory.
• Managed product mix to ensure healthy gross margins.
• Controlled trade spend to enhance budget efficiency.
• Coordinated comprehensive marketing actions across the territory.

Selected from a pool of 3500 applicants to be part of the trainee commercial areas program.

• Developed an Excellence Plan to enhance distribution for Formula RB.
• Created a commercial policy to reward exceptional distribution performance of RB clients.
• Designed a market entry model for launching RB Medicines in Brazil.