Director of Industry Engagement
Afresh is on a mission to eliminate food waste and make fresh food accessible to all. Our first A.I.-powered solution optimizes ordering, forecasting, and store operations for fresh food departments in brick-and-mortar grocers. With our Fresh Operating System, regional and national grocery retailers have placed $1.6 billion in produce orders across the US and we've helped our partners prevent 34 million pounds of food from going to waste. Working at Afresh represents a one-of-a-kind opportunity to have massive social impact at scale by leveraging uncommonly impactful software – we hope you'll join us!
About the Role
We are seeking a seasoned Grocery veteran with deep subject matter expertise in merchandising, marketing, operations, or IT to join our marketing team as the Director of Industry Engagement. In this role, you’d serve as our connection to the industry, bringing customer and market insights to fuel Afresh’s strategy, attending industry events to generate leads and interest, developing engagement strategies for key contacts for Afresh sponsored industry conferences, and owning relationships with industry associations and publications (FMI, Progressive Grocer).
You will work closely with cross-functional teams and leadership (CEO, CRO, Head of Marketing) as an industry expert, lending your experience and insights to accelerate growth at Afresh.
In this role, you will:
- Cultivate relationships with industry associations, grocery executives, thought leaders, analysts/consultants, and media outlets to cultivate insights and garner content distribution opportunities.
- Keep abreast of competition and trends in the grocery industry to identify opportunities that can inform the Afresh’s content, messaging, GTM, and long-term strategy.
- Identify and apply to the right stages, events, awards, and thought leadership opportunities for our CEO and Sales team to build Afresh's brand as an AI leader in the grocery industry.
- Work directly with our Sr. Demand Marketing Manager to plan Afresh’s presence at industry events focusing on facilitating connections and gathering insights on industry developments.
- Support our Sales Directors with building relationships at key customers in support of pipeline growth and deal closure.
- Preparing our CEO and Sales team for industry events to ensure successful engagement before, during, and after.
Skills and Experience
The following represent the skills and experience our ideal candidate possesses. We encourage candidates to apply, even if they do not fulfill all the listed criteria.
- Minimum of 10 years of experience in the Grocery retail space or Grocery tech; preferred experience in retail strategy, marketing, merchandising, category management, or distribution.
- Strong understanding of the grocery industry landscape, trends, and market dynamic; brings an existing network with them.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; able to build and maintain relationships with industry experts, partners, and media contacts.
- Understanding of media landscape, industry associations, story pitching, and managing media coverage.
- Experience working collaboratively with cross-functional teams like Sales, Marketing, and Implementation for industry-specific initiatives.
Pay Band in USD:
About Afresh
Founded in 2017, Afresh is working on the #1 solution to curb climate change: reducing food waste. By combining human insight and transformative technology, we're helping grocers provide fresher food to customers at more affordable prices.
Afresh sits at an incredible intersection of positive social impact, rocket ship financial growth, and cutting-edge technology. Our best-in-class AI research has been published in top journals including ICML, and we've raised over $148 million in funding from investors including former co-CEO of Whole Foods Market Walter Robb and Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors.
Fresh is the past, present, and future of our food system – the waste we create today will impact our planet for years to come. Join us as we continue to build a vibrant, diverse, and inclusive team that embodies our company’s values of proactivity, kindness, candor, and humility.
Afresh provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law.
Here at Afresh, many of our employees work remotely provided that they reside in one of the following states: AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, KY, MA, MI, MT, MO, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OR, PA, TX, WA, WI. However, there may be key roles that will require a candidate/employee to be local to our San Francisco, CA office. In which case this requirement will be included in the job posting details under "Skills and experience" for reference.