Trade Marketing Lead, Health Food

The Trade Marketing Lead, Health Food is responsible for shaping and executing the go-to-market and trade marketing agenda for NCH's Health Foods portfolio across Modern Trade, Lower Trade, eCommerce, and qCommerce channels in the UAE.

The portfolio brings together a diverse range of international health food and consumer brands, including Cuetara, Made Good, Georgia Naturals, and others, creating a broad commercial remit across categories, shopper segments, and retail channels.

This is a senior, commercially focused role requiring strong understanding of UAE FMCG trade dynamics and the ability to translate brand and category priorities into customer-specific plans that improve visibility, shopper engagement, sales performance, and return on investment.

The role operates across the full commercial ecosystem, working closely with Sales, Digital Commerce, Marketing, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Finance, retailers, and global principal partners. Success requires someone who can combine strategic planning with disciplined execution, challenge decisions using data, manage multiple stakeholders, and remain close enough to the market to ensure that plans translate into measurable results.

Your Core Responsibilities

Trade Marketing Strategy & Go-to-Market

• Own the annual trade marketing and go-to-market strategy across Modern Trade, Lower Trade, eCommerce, and qCommerce.
• Translate brand and commercial priorities into clear channel plans, activation calendars, and execution priorities.
• Identify opportunities to strengthen distribution, visibility, shopper engagement, and commercial performance across priority channels.
• Support new product launches through GTM planning, activation, sales enablement, and execution follow-up.

Modern Trade & Customer Activation

• Partner with Sales to develop customer-specific activation plans, promotional calendars, and retail execution strategies.
• Lead in-store activations, promotions, visibility programmes, and shopper campaigns designed to drive incremental sales and brand presence.
• Ensure promotional mechanics and activation investments are commercially justified and aligned with brand and customer objectives.
• Monitor execution quality and identify corrective actions where performance or implementation falls below expectations.

Omnichannel & Digital Commerce Execution

• Partner with Digital Commerce teams to develop and execute eCommerce and qCommerce activation plans.
• Align digital campaigns with physical retail activity to create consistent omnichannel execution.
• Strengthen online visibility, conversion, promotional effectiveness, and customer engagement across priority platforms.
• Use channel performance insights to refine activation plans and identify opportunities for incremental growth.

Trade Investment, Budget & ROI

• Manage trade marketing budgets and promotional investment with clear accountability for effectiveness and commercial return.
• Forecast activation spend and ensure resources are directed towards the highest-value customers, channels, and opportunities.
• Evaluate campaign performance and conduct post-activation reviews to determine ROI and identify improvement opportunities.
• Balance brand-building priorities with short-term commercial requirements and investment discipline.

Principal & Stakeholder Management

• Manage engagement with global principal partners on annual marketing plans, activation calendars, performance reviews, and market priorities.
• Translate principal strategies into locally relevant plans suited to UAE channel and shopper dynamics.
• Present market, category, customer, and activation performance with clear commercial recommendations.
• Build trusted relationships with internal and external stakeholders to strengthen alignment and execution.

Insights, Performance & Commercial Execution

• Analyse shopper behaviour, market trends, competitor activity, customer performance, and campaign results to identify growth opportunities.
• Convert data and market insights into practical recommendations for Sales, Marketing, Digital Commerce, and other stakeholders.
• Prepare regular business and campaign performance reviews with clear conclusions, actions, and accountability.
• Coordinate across functions to ensure commercial initiatives are operationally feasible and delivered effectively.

Qualifications & Skills

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Nutrition, or a related field; a Nutrition or Dietetics qualification would be an advantage.
• 5 to 10 years of progressive FMCG marketing or trade marketing experience, with strong exposure to the UAE market.
• Direct experience across UAE Modern Trade and Lower Trade channels is essential.
• Proven experience leading GTM execution, retail activation, promotions, shopper programmes, and visibility initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to manage trade marketing budgets, promotional investment, campaign performance, and ROI.
• Experience working directly with international or regional principal brands and cross-functional commercial teams.
• Exposure to eCommerce or qCommerce activation within FMCG, consumer goods, health foods, or related categories.
• Experience in health foods, nutrition, wellness, nutraceuticals, or consumer health would be a strong advantage.
• Strong commercial and analytical capability, with the ability to translate data into practical actions and business recommendations.
• Advanced working knowledge of Excel and PowerPoint, with exposure to retail analytics or digital commerce reporting tools considered an advantage.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication, presentation, project management, and influencing skills.
• Demonstrated accountability, agility, collaboration, integrity, and a practical approach to problem-solving, aligned with NCH Culture DNA.