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:
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Assess, design, and implement Route to Market (RTM) strategies tailored to each market’s regulatory, commercial, and logistical context.
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Analyze and optimize existing distributor setups, suggesting alternative coverage models when needed.
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Identify white space and design commercial approaches to expand GTI’s availability and reach.
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Lead market visits and trade audits to validate distributor execution and provide structured feedback.
Trade Marketing & Visibility:
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Build and deploy GTI’s Trade Marketing Toolkit across priority markets covering product visibility, shelf standards, and brand guidelines.
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Collaborate with distributors and internal teams to align on channel-specific execution plans, including merchandising, POSM deployment, and campaign activations.
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Conduct regular in field audits to monitor compliance with GTI’s merchandising and planogram guidelines.
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Define visibility metrics per channel and track them against target execution KPIs.
Pricing, Trade Support & Commercial Control:
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Design and manage price structures that captures the value chain while respecting trade margins and tax frameworks
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Monitor price compliance across markets and flag deviation risks.
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Develop, roll out, and evaluate trade support programs (e.g., incentive schemes, rebates, activations) in collaboration with Distributors.
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Support annual distributor negotiations and define execution clauses for new partnerships.
Distribution KPIs & Performance Tracking:
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Define and track in-market distribution KPIs, including:
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Product availability.
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Visibility standards.
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Route-to-market coverage.
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Trade support deployment.
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Stock coverage & freshness.
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Build reporting templates with support from the Demand Analyst to review monthly performance per market/distributor.
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Monitor competitor presence, pricing, and activities using structured retail intelligence and distributor feedback.
Forecasting Support & Cross-functional Collaboration:
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Collaborate with the Demand Planning Analyst to feed market-level intelligence and performance insights into forecast assumptions.
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Contribute to the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) cycle by validating distributor pipeline, promotional plans, and field realities.
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Align with Supply Chain, Sales, and Finance to maintain visibility across execution, inventory, and cost management.
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Participate in the development of new market entry plans, advising on trade set-up, coverage potential, and resource needs.
Required Skills To Be Successful:
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Deep understanding of trade marketing execution and distribution frameworks, ideally across multiple emerging markets and Duty Free channel.
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Strong commercial acumen with experience designing pricing structures and managing trade spend.
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Proven ability to develop and enforce price compliance and execution standards.
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Capable of building KPIs and measuring trade performance through dashboards and field insights.
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Hands-on approach with the ability to work across structured and unstructured distributor environments.
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Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.
What We’re Looking For:
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7+ years in Trade Marketing, Distribution Management, or RTM execution — tobacco industry experience preferred.
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Strong commercial acumen with proven pricing and trade spend management skills.
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Ability to enforce price compliance and trade execution standards.
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Expertise in KPI development and trade performance measurement.
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Hands-on, proactive approach in distributor environments, structured and unstructured.
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Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship management skills.
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Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or Commercial Management.
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Fluent English; additional languages a plus.