Distributor Account Manager - Los Angeles County at Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream

Are you looking to catapult your career by driving high-impact transformation with household brands? Do you crave an entrepreneurial, fast paced and engaging growth assignment working with incredible people from across the globe?

At Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, we are excited to start a new chapter of accelerated growth as part of Froneri – a global pure-play ice cream leader. With nearly 100 years of winning experience in the U.S, a robust portfolio of powerhouse brands that consumers know and love such as Häagen-Dazs, Drumstick, Dreyer’s/Edy’s, Skinny Cow, OREO, Outshine and Frollies, and the backing and coaching of European-based ice cream experts, we know we have the winning recipe.

Headquartered in Walnut Creek, the Bay Area’s hub for up-and-coming food trends, our DGIC team across our offices and factories is raising the bar on all things ice cream. Our growth has been tremendous in the past few years – moving from being #2 manufacturer in market to being #1 in 2024. The brands have strong investments in marketing support, quality improvements and exciting line extensions and innovation. DGIC has also been recognized by retail partners as the top manufacturer partner, winning the #1 position in the prestigious Advantage Award in 2024.

At DGIC, we don’t just hire for roles, we grow future business leaders. Here, everyone is encouraged to think like a general manager. That means owning your piece of the business, making bold decisions, and seeing the big picture. What makes us unique? You won’t just stay in your lane, you’ll get hands-on exposure to everything from Sales, Marketing and operations to Finance and Supply Chain. It’s like getting an MBA on the job (but with way more ice cream). If you’re curious, driven, and ready to learn a lot about a lot, this is the place to stretch your skills and fast-track your career.

Unleash your potential at Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream and discover what a sweet career we have in store for you!

What To Expect From Dreyer’s

At the heart of our culture are four core values that guide our actions and define how we work together. We Take Ownership by staying committed from start to finish, making thoughtful decisions, and focusing our efforts on initiatives that drive growth, efficiency, and sustainability. We Do What Is Right by prioritizing transparency, setting clear roles and responsibilities, and speaking up when something doesn’t align with our values. We Seek to Improve through continuous innovation, embracing feedback, and learning from both our successes and setbacks. And We Are Better Together by making decisions that benefit the whole organization, fostering inclusion through diverse perspectives, and treating everyone with fairness and respect. These values are not just ideals—they are the behaviors we live by every day.

Job Summary

The Distributor Account Manager is responsible for driving profitable growth in the frozen category by leading distributor partnerships that service independent grocery, regional chains, and convenience accounts. This role develops distributor-specific category strategies, manages forecasts and trade investments, and ensures strong in-market execution across freezer distribution, promotions, and service levels. Through cross-functional collaboration and data-driven insights, the Distributor Account Manager maximizes distribution, velocity, and customer satisfaction while maintaining cold-chain and financial discipline. We are targeting someone in the Los Angeles market for this specific role.

Objectives

• Maintain consistent communication with distributors to plan and execute frozen promotions and seasonal initiatives.
• Create data-driven new item and distribution presentations focused on freezer productivity and shelf optimization.
• Build and maintain shipment and takeaway-supported forecasts by distributor and category.
• Negotiate promotional programs, freezer allocations, and execution standards with distributor partners.
• Ensure compliance with distributor agreements, pricing policies, and frozen trade guidelines.
• Manage trade and distributor investment to maximize ROI while maintaining strong distributor relationships.
• Partner with cross functional teams to support frozen merchandising and promotional programs.
• Analyze promotional effectiveness, freezer distribution gains, and velocity using syndicated and distributor data.
• Maintain required reporting, distributor scorecards, promotion calendars, and forecasts.
• Execute all company frozen priorities through distributor partners.
• Partner cross-functionally to drive continuous improvement in frozen execution and distributor performance.
• Continuously assess in-market conditions and provide feedback to enhance the frozen consumer experience.

Performance

Drive profitable growth by executing frozen category strategies through distributor partners to win in independent grocery, regional chains, and C‑store accounts.

• Partner with Distributor Sales, Category Management, and internal Commercial teams to develop frozen category and distributor-specific plans anchored in consumption trends, seasonality, and freezer optimization.
• Commercialize New Item Plans with distributors, including freezer authorization strategy, distribution timing, and initial shipment and takeaway forecasts.
• Develop distributor-led promotional strategies that align with frozen merchandising realities (ad timing, reset cadence, labor constraints, and freezer capacity).
• Build bottom-up distributor shipment forecasts and Integrated Distributor/Category Plans using approved planning systems, incorporating seasonality and promotional lifts.
• Execute all company frozen priorities through distributor partners to deliver distribution, volume, and revenue targets across assigned territory.

Distributor Strategy

Shipment accuracy, frozen distribution growth, retail execution, inventory discipline, service levels, and profitability.

• Achieve annual shipment, distribution, and trade investment objectives through effective distributor negotiation and execution discipline.
• Utilize planning and analytics tools (e.g., Thoughtspot, Exceedra, or equivalent) to build distributor plans supporting freezer velocity, margin expectations, and service levels.
• Drive forecast accuracy by aligning internal demand planning with distributor forecasts, freezer space constraints, and seasonal demand cycles.
• Continuously adjust forecasts based on promotional cadence, weather impacts, and consumption trends common to frozen categories.
• Maintain frequent engagement with distributor sales, merchandising, and operations teams to:

– Expand freezer distribution and secured placements

– Drive new item authorizations and resets

– Ensure promotional and pricing compliance

– Address service, inventory, shrink, or quality issues

• Identify gaps between distributor commitments and retail freezer execution and implement corrective action plans.
• Ensure distributor KPI achievement including shipment growth, retail freezer distribution, in-stocks, shrink control, and service levels.
• Develop working knowledge of distributor cold-chain logistics, ordering cycles, and inventory turns to support supply chain alignment.

Win in Market: Frozen Execution Excellence

• Lead Joint Business Planning (JBP) with distributor leadership, presenting frozen category strategies, annual priorities, and execution calendars.
• Monitor distributor scorecards, promotional execution, and freezer compliance; recalibrate plans to improve results.
• Equip distributors with frozen selling tools, category insights, and merchandising guidance to improve downstream retail performance.
• Communicate in-market execution issues (freezer outages, resets, service failures) to internal leadership and partners.

Distributor Financial Responsibility

• Support deduction management by partnering with Accounts Receivable to validate distributor deductions, including trade, damage, and service-related claims.
• Support timely and accurate distributor invoice payments by resolving discrepancies related to pricing, promotions, or bill backs.
• Own distributor pricing accuracy, ensuring frozen trade agreements, promotions, and terms are correctly reflected on invoices.

Develop Valued Capabilities

Enhance distributor value through data-driven insights, effective negotiation, and frozen execution expertise.

• Translate syndicated data (IRI/Circana) and distributor shipment data into insights that improve frozen velocity, distribution, and ROI.
• Elevate negotiation skills by leveraging freezer productivity data, shopper insights, and promotional effectiveness analyses.
• Demonstrate continuous improvement in distributor forecasting, freezer execution, and relationship management.

Integrated Approach: Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Leverage standardized reporting and category insights to identify frozen growth opportunities by channel and region.
• Collaborate with Supply Chain, Finance, Category Sales Development, Shopper Marketing, and Quality teams to support distributor success.
• Share frozen-specific best practices and execution learnings across distributor partners and internal stakeholders.

Drive Quality: Cold-Chain & Shelf Excellence

• Act as a quality ambassador by routinely visiting distributor-serviced retail locations to assess freezer conditions, temperature compliance, planogram execution, pricing accuracy, and product quality.
• Provide actionable feedback to internal teams to improve cold-chain reliability and retail execution.

Experience

• 5+ Years experience in customer facing, sales planning, or category management sales roles in CPG industry
• Seeking category or sales experience working with distributors, frozen distributors a plus.
• Commercial experience, high developed collaboration and influencing skills, self-starter, results driven, entrepreneurial
• Experience in retail sales roles a plus
• Knowledge of customer best practices, market intelligence, category/channel/ shopper trends and shopper Insight into actionable ideas.
• History in data management (IRI, Nielsen, other data sources) and insight building. Proven ability to develop sound insights and strategies across multiple data points.

The pay scale for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. At Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. The pay range for prospective employees in this role is between $90,000 and $130,000 per year.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.