Counter Culture Coffee was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Durham, NC, with regional offices in 12 major cities across the country. Counter Culture Coffee has been continuously innovating in the coffee industry and we’re looking for passionate, dynamic, diverse team members to help us expand our efforts.
Counter Culture Coffee is:
- A relentless pursuit of coffee perfection
- A dedication to real environmental, social, and fiscal sustainability
- A commitment to creating cutting edge coffee people
Our Purpose is:
- Quality Coffee | We continue to cultivate relationships with growers and organizations around the world in order to build trust, improve quality, and foster transparency.
- Education | We believe the pursuit of coffee perfection includes educating ourselves, our partners, and our customers about the coffee supply chain and the best methods of preparation.
- Sustainability | Our commitment to affecting positive change in every community to which we are connected is driven by our belief that we can–and should–always strive to improve upon the present.
- Transparency | We are committed to sustainability and holding ourselves and our peers accountable for creating a more sustainable future of coffee.
Position: Vice President of Sales
Department: Sales
Location: Durham - Corporate, Hybrid
Reports To: CEO
FLSA Status: EXEMPT, 8810
Job Overview:
Counter Culture Coffee is seeking a coffee-loving sales leader with deep expertise in the consumer-packaged goods industry to join our senior leadership team. We are seeking an experienced, values-led Vice President of Sales to drive disciplined, profitable growth across Grocery, Wholesale, and Foodservice. This executive will lead enterprise sales strategy, strengthen commercial execution, and build a high-performing team that scales revenue while protecting brand integrity.
This role is both strategic and operational. The VP of Sales will define where we play, how we win, and how we execute with consistency across channels, customers, and teams. Beyond the numbers, we're looking for someone who embodies our culture, collaborates with heart, and brings both passion and professionalism to the table.
Job Duties:
Executive Leadership:
- As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, adopt an enterprise view of the business that prioritizes the company’s overarching long-term objectives.
- Develop strong, productive relationships with other functional leaders and be a great teammate.
- Live the values of Counter Culture (Sustainability, Education and Quality), and as one of the company’s primary brand ambassadors, reflect those values out to the marketplace.
- As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, operate with total accountability for business performance.
Strategic Sales Leadership:
- Develop and execute an integrated multi-year sales strategy across Grocery, Wholesale, and Foodservice.
- Set channel priorities, customer segmentation, and account growth plans by region and customer type.
- Translate brand priorities into actionable commercial plans that drive both velocity and margin.
- Identify growth opportunities and competitive threats; adjust strategy quickly and decisively.
- Help author and manage our company’s focus. Prioritize opportunities that support our Long-Term Plan for Growth while also taking stock of our constraints as a challenger brand.
Sales Team Management:
- Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing sales organization.
- Recruit and retain top sales talent with clear performance standards.
- Build operating discipline through consistent planning rhythms, pipeline reviews, and performance management.
- Strengthen leadership bench depth and succession readiness.
Customer Relationship Management:
- Build strong relationships with key executives at our current and potential customers, especially in Grocery and Food Service.
- Using data and insights, build the Counter Culture growth narrative that resonates with key accounts.
- Oversee our Retail promotional spending budget, driving maximum returns on our promotional spending by knowing the ins and out of each account, and what tools work best to achieve our growth objectives.
- Negotiate pricing, contracts, and promos to maximize sales and profits.
- Keep customers happy and find ways to improve their buy-in to the Counter Culture role in the category.
Sales Operations & Analysis:
- Track sales performance against key metrics and manage your sales teams accordingly.
- Analyze sales data to find trends, opportunities, and risks to the business.
- Improve forecast accuracy, pipeline quality, and sales process rigor.
- Build clear performance scorecards and use data to guide decision-making.
- Partner with brokers and distributors to improve execution quality and accountability.
- Collaborate with Finance and Operations to improve demand planning and inventory outcomes.
- Oversee account profitability, ensuring that each key account relationship and the associated costs of doing business are balanced and equitable.
Key Account and Market Leadership:
- Build and deepen executive relationships with strategic customers and partners.
- Lead high-stakes negotiations across pricing, contracts, and promotions.
- Shape compelling customer narratives using market data, category insights, and brand positioning.
Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Partner closely with Marketing, Innovation, Operations, and Finance to align strategy and execution.
- Work closely with marketing, product development, and operations to align sales with the overall brand strategy and the long-term growth plan.
- Work with Marketing to develop sales materials based on syndicated data and, if applicable, primary research.
- Create strong feedback loops so customer and field insights inform brand, product, and channel decisions.
First-Year Success Measures:
- Sales strategy is clearly defined and executed across all priority channels, specifically Grocery.
- Forecast accuracy and pipeline discipline are materially improved.
- Trade and promotional investments are more effective and measurable.
- Cross-functional collaboration improves speed and quality of execution.
- Team structure, accountability, and talent performance are strengthened.
- Profitable revenue growth is delivered in line with plan.
Requirements:
- The successful candidate is commercially rigorous, collaborative, and execution focused. They combine strategic clarity with operational follow-through, lead with humility and accountability, and can scale systems and people without diluting what makes Counter Culture special.
- 15+ years of progressive CPG commercial leadership experience, including significant Grocery Retail exposure.
- Proven record of scaling revenue and improving margin through pricing, trade, and account strategy.
- Demonstrated success leading teams across multiple sales channels (Grocery, Wholesale, Foodservice).
- Strong capabilities in strategic planning, negotiation, account management, and demand forecasting.
- Experience building high-accountability cultures and developing high-performing leaders.
- Excellent communication and executive presence with internal and external stakeholders.
- Strong analytical and financial acumen; able to translate data into action.
- Food and beverage brand experience would be ideal.
- Experience operating as a challenger brand in competitive categories.
- Exposure to broker/distributor network optimization.
- Proven ability to build a go-to-market strategy and sales plan
- Demonstrated leadership skills in all aspects of sales management, inclusive of pipeline development, sales conversion, and account management for growth, getting the details right profit management (price and trade, understanding our costs), and accurate demand planning, partnering with Operations and Marketing to forecast sales.
Physical Aspects of this Job:
The physical activity of this position:
- Talking: expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word, those activities in which they must convey detailed or important spoken instructions to other workers accurately, loudly, or quickly.
- Hearing: perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction, ability to receive detailed information through oral communication, and to make the discriminations in sound.
The physical requirements of this position:
- Sedentary work. Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or a negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body. Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time.
The visual acuity requirements (including color, depth perception, and field vision) of this position:
- Requires close visual acuity to perform an activity such as: preparing and analyzing data and figures; transcribing; viewing a computer terminal; and extensive reading.
90 Day Goals:
- Build strategic understanding and relationships
- Attend New Employee Orientation, where applicable.
- Strong understanding of LEAN, GGOB, B-CORP
- Strong understanding of Counter Culture’s vision, mission, values, and plan
- Analyze the market landscape by assessing customer segments, competitive dynamics, and external trends to establish a clear understanding of where the company can win.
- Define the sales strategy by refining the ideal customer profile, value propositions, and revenue growth priorities.
- Evaluate the current sales pipeline by reviewing coverage, quality, conversion rates, win/loss patterns, and forecast accuracy to identify performance gaps.
- Redesign sales operations and processes including sales stages, qualification criteria, forecasting cadence, territory design, and compensation alignment.
- Revamp sales metrics and performance management by establishing a focused set of leading and lagging indicators, rep scorecards, and manager dashboards.
- Assess and improve the sales technology stack by auditing CRM usage, data quality, integrations, and enablement tools, then implementing prioritized enhancements.
Benefits: Currently, the offered benefits include, group health (medical, dental and vision), available the first of the month after 30 days of employment; Flexible Spending Accounts for Healthcare and for Dependent Care; short- and long-term disability; life insurance; Wellness Benefits; 401(k) program; paid time off; eight company holidays; Stock Option Plan; A Stake in the Outcome.
Counter Culture Coffee a growth-oriented company, team of coffee driven individuals working together on continuous improvements.
Counter Culture Coffee is an Equal Opportunity Employer in both policy and practice.
Counter Culture Coffee assesses candidates for employment based on their knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the job for which they are applying and without regard to any non-job-related category as protected by federal, state or local law.
Finalist candidates for employment will be required to demonstrate USA employment eligibility - per federal and state law, Counter Culture Coffee participates in the federal E-Verify program. Candidates must have the legal right to work in the United States without sponsorship.
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