Founding Sales Lead

Founding Sales Lead - Modern Trade & General Trade

Location: Mumbai
Employment Type: Full-Time
Industry: FMCG / Food & Consumer Brands
Experience: 58 years

Build the Next Generation of Indian Consumer Brands

This is not another FMCG sales job.

Our client is a fast-growing Indian consumer food brand building a new category around convenient, high-quality home cooking solutions.

The company has already established a strong presence across Quick Commerce, E-commerce, D2C and retail, and is now entering its next phase of growth.

We are looking for an entrepreneurial sales leader who wants to build markets, expand distribution, strengthen retail partnerships and create a scalable sales enginenot simply manage an existing territory.

If youre energized by creating markets, building teams, solving difficult commercial problems and seeing your work translate directly into business growth, this could be an exceptional opportunity.

The Opportunity

The business is already present across:

• 6,000+ Quick Commerce dark stores
• 1,000+ General Trade outlets across Western India
• Leading modern trade and premium retail networks
• Rapidly expanding Quick Commerce and E-commerce channels

The next phase involves significant expansion of the General Trade footprint, strengthening Modern Trade relationships and building the foundations for national distribution.

You will work closely with the founders and leadership team on sales strategy, market expansion, team development and execution.

This is a high-ownership role with significant influence over how the sales organization evolves.

What You’ll Build

General Trade

• Expand the retail footprint from 1,000+ outlets to several thousand stores
• Build and strengthen distributor and super-stockist networks
• Design territory plans and route-to-market strategies
• Lead and develop an existing team of ASMs and Sales Officers
• Recruit, coach and build a high-performing sales organization
• Improve numeric and weighted distribution
• Increase outlet productivity and secondary sales
• Drive retail visibility and merchandising excellence

Modern Trade

Own and grow strategic relationships with key retail partners.

You will:

• Improve store-level execution
• Increase product availability
• Drive new SKU launches
• Develop annual business plans with key accounts
• Drive category growth
• Improve sell-through and retail productivity
• Identify and develop new national and regional retail partnerships

Build the Sales Engine

Beyond delivering sales numbers, you will help create the systems required for the company to scale nationally.

This includes:

• Sales processes and operating rhythms
• Distributor management systems
• Sales technology and reporting
• Forecasting
• Incentive structures
• Territory planning
• KPI dashboards
• Sales analytics
• Team hiring and capability development

Who Will Thrive Here?

We are looking for someone with:

• 5–8 years of FMCG sales experience
• Strong General Trade experience
• Hands-on Modern Trade experience
• Experience scaling a startup or challenger brand is highly preferred
• Experience building distribution and markets from the ground up
• Strong commercial and business acumen
• Excellent negotiation and relationship-management skills
• High ownership and accountability
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment

Experience in packaged foods, dairy, beverages, healthy foods or D2C consumer brands will be particularly valuable.

Startup/challenger-brand experience will be a significant advantage.

What Success Looks Like

Within the first 12 months, you will have:

• Dramatically expanded the General Trade footprint
• Built a scalable distributor and super-stockist network
• Strengthened key Modern Trade partnerships
• Added new national and regional retail chains
• Built a high-performing sales organization
• Established robust sales systems and operating rhythms
• Created the foundation for nationwide expansion

Why Join at This Stage?

This is an opportunity to join a consumer business at a high-growth stage, where your decisions can directly influence the company’s trajectory.

You will have the opportunity to:

• Work directly with experienced founders
• Influence commercial and expansion strategy
• Build teams and markets
• Launch into new territories
• Create systems and processes from the ground up
• Take significant ownership of business outcomes

As the company scales, so will your role, responsibilities and impact.

Compensation & Growth

The company offers:

• Competitive fixed compensation
• Performance-linked incentives
• Significant ownership and decision-making authority
• Potential ESOP / equity-linked incentives for exceptional candidates

Interested?

If you have successfully built distribution, grown territories and scaled sales for an FMCG, food or challenger consumer brand—and are looking for an opportunity where you can build rather than simply manage, we’d like to hear from you.