Vice President, Sales Operations at KeHE Distributors

Date: 2 hours ago
City: Naperville, IL
Contract type: Full time

Why Work for KeHE?

  • Full-time
  • Pay Range: $180,730.00/Yr. - $265,051.00/Yr.
  • Shift Days: , Shift Time:
  • Benefits on Day 1
    • Health/Rx
    • Dental
    • Vision
    • Flexible and health spending accounts (FSA/HSA)
    • Supplemental life insurance
    • 401(k)
    • Paid time off
    • Paid sick time
    • Short term & long term disability coverage (STD/LTD)
    • Employee stock ownership (ESOP)
    • Holiday pay for company designated holidays

Overview

Good people, working with good people, for our common good.

Sound good?

KeHE-a natural, organic, specialty and fresh food distributor-is all about "good" and is growing, so there's never been a more exciting time to join our team. If you're enthusiastic about working in an environment with a people-first culture and an organization committed to good living, good food and good service, we'd love to talk to you!

Primary Responsibilities

KeHE is one of the nation's leading distributors of natural, organic, fresh, and specialty products and our commercial organization is ready to operate at a higher level. We're looking for a VP of Sales Operations to build the engine that makes that happen.

This is a high-impact, highly visible role for a commercially minded operator who can translate strategy into execution. You'll lead Sales Operations, Sales Enablement, Subject Matter Expert teams, and Inside Sales creating the infrastructure, cadence, and capability that allow our sales organization to grow faster, serve customers better, and win more consistently.

If you thrive at the intersection of strategy and execution, know how to build teams and operating systems from the ground up, and want to shape the commercial future of a mission-driven company, this role is for you.

Essential Functions

DUTIES, TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Sales Operations. You'll serve as the operating backbone of the commercial organization; bringing discipline, visibility, and scalability to how KeHE sells. That means owning the commercial operating cadence across performance reviews, account planning, pipeline management, and governance; leading territory design, quota setting, coverage modeling, and productivity analysis; and building data-driven sales forecasting powered by predictive analytics and historical trends. You'll design and standardize sales processes across national, regional, independent, and alternate channel teams, including how leads are captured, qualified, prioritized, and assigned. You'll also manage incentive compensation design and serve as a key cross-functional partner to Finance, Revenue Management, Pricing, Supply Chain, and IT.
  • Sales Enablement. You will be building a strategic enablement roadmap aligned to KeHE's commercial priorities; building a centralized content library of playbooks, case studies, negotiation tools, and account planning resources; and creating onboarding programs that accelerate ramp time alongside ongoing training that builds lasting commercial capability. You'll also own the deployment and integration of sales tools, including content management, sales engagement platforms, and LMS, measuring everything through adoption rates, behavior change, and commercial results.
  • SME Team Leadership. You'll bring structure and leverage to how specialized expertise moves through the sales organization. This means defining a clear engagement model between Sales and Subject Matter Expert teams, prioritizing SME support against the highest-value commercial opportunities and ensuring that SME insights get translated into scalable tools, repeatable playbooks, and frontline capability. You'll reduce ad hoc demand by creating structured intake processes, service-level expectations, and reusable assets that extend the impact of your SME teams across the broader organization.
  • Inside Sales. You'll transform Inside Sales from a support function into a measurable, scalable growth channel. That starts with clearly defining the role of Inside Sales across account coverage, customer retention, reactivation, whitespace capture, and supplier and customer growth. You'll build segmentation-based coverage models that bring clarity to when field, inside, hybrid, or digital engagement is the right approach and establish the productivity metrics, call cadences, campaign structures, and performance routines that make Inside Sales accountable and effective. In partnership with Marketing, Merchandising, and Commercial teams, you'll activate targeted growth campaigns and raise the consistency and measurability of engagement across KeHE's smaller, emerging, and long-tail accounts.
  • Commercial Governance & Cross-Functional Execution. You'll be a trusted operating partner for every function that touches the customer. You'll translate commercial strategy into operating plans, process changes, reporting requirements, and field execution building governance routines around sales compensation, account planning, customer profitability, deal desk processes, discount approvals, and contract management. You'll partner with Marketing on lead handoff and campaign feedback loops; collaborate with Category teams to relay customer insights and support new launch readiness; and work with Growth Solutions to share intelligence that improves retention and expansion. Across all of it, you'll track adoption, close feedback loops, surface execution gaps, and build the accountability mechanisms that keep the commercial organization moving with integrity and purpose.
  • Other duties and projects as assigned.

Minimum Requirements, Qualifications, Additional Skills, Aptitude

SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND ABILITIES:

  • Deep understanding of B2B sales processes, including account planning, territory and quota design, pipeline management, sales compensation, and CRM administration.
  • Proven ability to translate commercial strategy into practical operating models, scalable processes, governance frameworks, and field-ready tools.
  • Strong analytical and financial acumen, with the ability to interpret and act on revenue, margin, profitability, and productivity data.
  • Experience supporting large, geographically distributed sales organizations and influencing senior cross-functional leadership across Finance, Pricing, Supply Chain, IT, and Operations.
  • Strategic thinker with the operational discipline to move from vision to execution in a fast-paced, matrixed environment.
  • Highly collaborative, resourceful, and trustworthy; able to work independently while navigating complex organizational dynamics with professionalism and discretion.
  • Background in food distribution, CPG, wholesale distribution, grocery, retail, or multi-channel sales environments preferred.
  • Experience with Salesforce or comparable CRM platforms preferred; familiarity with sales engagement tools, LMS, and BI platforms (Power BI) plus.
  • Track record of building or transforming Sales Enablement and Inside Sales functions preferred.
  • Experience leading change management and driving tool adoption in a complex, matrixed organization preferred.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

  • Undergraduate degree combined with 15 years of progressive leadership experience in Sales Operations, Revenue Operations, Commercial Operations, Sales Enablement, or a related field.
  • Demonstrated experience leading and developing multi-functional teams, including Sales Operations, Enablement, Inside Sales, Analytics, or commercial support functions

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

  • Ability to remain in a stationary position (seated or standing) for extended periods.
  • Ability to operate a computer, keyboard, mouse, and other standard office equipment.
  • Ability to view a computer screen for long periods.
  • Ability to move about the office occasionally to access files, equipment, or attend meetings.

Requisition ID

2026-29473

Equal Employer Opportunity Statement

KeHE Distributors provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits all forms of discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, religion or faith, sex, gender, age, ancestry, national origin, mental or physical disability or medical condition, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other category protected under federal, state, or local law. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training as well as the administration of all Human Resources and Talent Acquisition processes.

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