Associate Business Manager; Kroger

As an Associate Business Manager (ABM) on our Kroger team, you will play a key role in supporting and growing assigned customer businesses while developing the foundational skills needed for a Business Manager role. This position is designed as a developmental, client-facing role, where you will lead day-to-day management of smaller clients, while building expertise in sales strategy, analytics, and customer engagement.

You will be responsible for driving sales, executing key business fundamentals, and supporting strategic initiatives, all while learning to manage the full scope of a business. This role partners closely with senior leadership to accelerate readiness for broader responsibility.

Preferred locations for candidate to reside in - Cincinnati, Dayton, or within 1 hour of Cincinnati

• Achieve Sales Goals: Deliver principals’ volume, share, and sales fundamental goals (merchandising, assortment, pricing, and shelving) at the lowest possible cost while maximizing company revenue through brokerage, commissions, bonuses, and contest earnings.
• Strategic Communication: Communicate principals’ priorities to Retail Sales Managers, Marketing Managers and the retail selling organization to ensure in-store presence and business objectives are met.
• Relationship Building: Develop and maintain strong relationships with principals and customers, proactively communicating with key principals to foster collaboration and success. Participate in customer meetings, market visits, and line reviews, with increasing ownership over time.
• Market Insight: Coordinate principals’ market visits and key account calls, utilizing your knowledge of customer, market, and principal to successfully sell principals’ specific programs and initiatives.
• Feedback and Improvement: Provide feedback on the effectiveness of principals’ strategies, selling programs, and initiatives to both the principal and the General Manager, and offer suggestions on how to build organizational capacity and improve sales.
• Information Management: Maintain current account distribution information, review market pricing reports for accuracy and competitive activity, and collect and report all competitive activity.
• Selling & Presentation Development: Contribute to and begin leading sales presentations using syndicated and customer data. Leverage insights and guidance from Business Managers and leadership to build effective, customer-focused recommendations.
• Skill Development: Actively engage in training, coaching, and skill development opportunities. Seek feedback and apply learnings to build capabilities.
• Compliance and Financial Management: Ensure all client procedures and policies are followed, achieve client proprietary system expertise to manage promotional plans and fund balances, and monitor and take corrective action as necessary in financial management, such as deductions.
• Additional Responsibilities: Support broader team initiatives and take on stretch assignments as part of development.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience
• 1–3 years of sales, CPG, retail, or related experience preferred
• Strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to learn quickly and apply insights to business situations
• Proficiency in sales reporting tools and Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint)
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to build relationships internally and externally
• Willingness to travel as needed (light local travel)

Acosta Group and its subsidiaries believe the posted compensation range accurately reflects this role at the time of posting. Final pay may vary based on qualifications and location, and the range may be updated in the future.

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We are an equal employment opportunity employer.