Sales Operations Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Salary: $85,000$120,000

Forever Cheese imports, manufactures, and distributes premium specialty cheeses and foods. For more than 25 years we've worked with top producers across Italy, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Korea and beyond, supplying retailers, foodservice operators, and distributors across the U.S.

We're now expanding our branded specialty food offerings and scaling the commercial team to meet growing national demand.

The Role

The Sales Operations Manager leads the Sales, Inventory & Operations planning between the commercial team and the rest of the business.

At the center of this role is demand planning. You'll consolidate order trends, open orders, forecast inputs, and pipeline visibility from the field into a single, credible demand picture that Purchasing and Operations can build to. The optimal output from the role is that we can now plan inventory, time production, and commit to realistic lead times across all of our businesses.

Beyond demand, you'll own the operational cadence that keeps the commercial team running order workflow, customer platform compliance and NIF submissions, reporting and KPI scorecards, deal desk and pricing approvals and deduction recovery. You'll manage a four-person inside team and serve as the decision-maker on day-to-day operational calls so field reps stay focused on selling.

This is a role for someone who sees the full picture, commercially aware enough to understand what the business needs to win and operationally disciplined enough to build the systems that deliver it.

What You'll Own

Inside team and order workflow

• Manage a team of four: two Sales Associates and two Customer Service reps supporting our customer segments.
• Run order workflow end-to-end across E21 and customer portals
• Set and enforce SLAs for queue management, kickback resolution, and order confirmations.
• Make the call on substitutions, short-ships, and credit holds so field reps aren't pulled into operational triage.

NIF and retailer compliance

• Own New Item Form submissions process and compliance across all retailer systems.
• Keep specs, certifications, and documentation current across every portal.

Reporting and analytics

• Own CRM hygiene, sales reporting, dashboards, and KPI scorecards.
• Publish a weekly flash to the Director of Sales: bookings, shipments, fill rate, top wins, top issues.
• Produce monthly scorecards by segment, rep, account, and brand.

Deal desk, pricing, and commissions

• Run a single-channel deal desk for pricing approvals, deal exceptions, and sample budget requests.
• Approve off-list pricing up to threshold; escalate above it with a recommendation and the customer margin picture.
• Calculate and publish monthly commission accruals; reconcile with Finance at month-end.
• Own deduction recovery and short-ship reconciliation with AR, with disputes filed inside retailer windows.

What We're Looking For

Required

• 36 years in sales operations, commercial operations, or a closely related role, ideally in food, CPG, or distribution.
• Experience managing an inside sales or customer service team.
• A track record of owning order management, reporting, and cross-functional operational workflows.
• Strong analytical chops; comfortable building and presenting dashboards, scorecards, and forecasts.
• Working knowledge of CRM and ERP/order management systems.
• Ability to juggle a high volume of concurrent priorities without dropping things.
• Based in or able to commute to NYC for 3 days a week in-office.

Nice to have

• Background in specialty food, cheese, imported food, or perishable CPG.
• Hands-on experience with KeHE Connect, Syndigo, Demandtec, Periscope, or Wegmans portals.
• Experience with import-driven supply chains and long-lead-time demand planning.
• Experience with E21, commission calculations, and retailer deduction management.

What You're Like

• You close loops. Open items don't sit on your list for a week.
• You build processes that work when you're not in the room.
• You stay calm under operational pressure and decisive when a call needs to be made.
• You communicate clearly with people across functions and levels.
• You think commercially. You understand that clean operations are what makes customers successful.