Job Title: Key Accounts Manager - Premium Trade
Level: Mid-Level Management
About us
With over 200 brands sold in nearly 180 countries, we're the world's leading premium drinks company. Bring your passion and use your curiosity as you explore, collaborate, and innovate to build brands consumers love. Together with passionate people from all over the world, you'll test new insights, learn and grow, and unlock a brighter, more exciting future.
Join us to create a career worth celebrating.
About the Function:
Our Sales team thrives on building trusted partnerships and connecting with customers to sell our premium brands in vibrant markets where they can thrive. Every year, they help bring our iconic brands to life in over 180 countries.
Want more jobs like this?
Get Business Operations jobs in Kampala, Uganda delivered to your inbox every week.
We operate across diverse markets, channels, and areas of expertise. With your curiosity and passion, you'll use consumer insights and digital platforms to reach new customers, unlock new markets, and elevate celebrations-driving our growth potential. With a strong emphasis on learning and development, we empower our people to reach their full potential and help shape the future of celebrations.
About the Team:
Diageo is the world's leading premium drinks company, home to globally celebrated brands such as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray, Singleton, and Guinness. Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere.
Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL), part of the East African Breweries family and a subsidiary of Diageo, is committed to driving Total Beverage Alcohol (TBA) growth across the region.
Through our Fahari ambition, our goal is to position premium spirits as the most aspirational and versatile category-unlocking cultural relevance and partnerships through commercial excellence. Our targets include tripling penetration, achieving 5x Net Sales Value (NSV), and reaching 35% numeric distribution by F30.
Role Overview:
As Key Accounts Manager - Premium Trade, you will spearhead commercial partnerships with Uganda's most influential trendsetting bars, lounges, and nightlife venues-cultural epicenters that shape aspirational lifestyles. In this role, you'll champion the performance and equity of our Premium and Reserve spirits portfolio, including iconic brands such as Johnnie Walker, Singleton, Don Julio, and Tanqueray.
Serving as the primary liaison between UBL and its most prestigious on-trade accounts, you will lead the "Push" agenda-driving profitability, volume, and brand growth. Your success will be defined by your ability to turn commercial strategy into impactful consumer experiences, compelling advocacy and standout brand visibility within key venues.
This role is entirely field-based role with direct reporting to the Business Development manager who you will work in close partnership with, along with marketing and advocacy teams. Together, you will shape trends, build influential relationships, and ensure our brands remain at the heart of luxury storytelling and consumption in Uganda's premium trade.
Purpose of the Role:
- Shape and influence premium drinking culture in Uganda by building partnerships with the country's top trend-leading accounts.
- Implement high-impact brand-building experiences that make our Reserve brands aspirational.
- Elevate advocacy and consumer pull through immersive events, bartender engagements, and cultural partnerships.
- Deliver commercial results through flawless execution of account plans, distribution, and visibility.
Key Responsibilities:
Strategic Account Leadership & Execution Excellence
- Own and grow long-term, collaborative relationships with top-tier Gold, Silver, and TLA accounts across key cities, aligning customer strategies with the Destination Reserve model to deliver a triple win for UBL, customers, and consumers.
- Lead the delivery of world-class Joint Up Customer Plans (JUCPs), covering 100% of TLA accounts and 50% of Gold/Silver accounts, anchored in data driven insights, and execution discipline.
- Drive commercial performance across key metrics i.e., NSV, volume, profit, rate of sale, and brand penetration while ensuring targeted investment and strong value.
- Champion demand planning and forecasting in collaboration with Supply and Commercial Ops, ensuring availability, efficient investment, and outlet readiness.
- Implement premium and Reserve brand plans flawlessly at the point of purchase and consumption, including BTL activations, venue takeovers, and brand events, in full compliance with brand standards.
- Partner with Brand Ambassadors and advocacy leads to integrate trade incentives, bartender education, and visibility tools that elevate the brand and consumer experience.
- Win with consumers by delivering codifiable, trend-setting experiences that drive cultural relevance, advocacy, and repeat consumption in premium spaces.
Premium & Luxury Portfolio Advocacy & Brand Storytelling
- Act as a custodian of Diageo's premium and luxury brands such as Johnnie Walker, Singleton, Don Julio, and Tanqueray driving brand equity, visibility, and cultural relevance in high-end and trendsetting venues.
- Partner with Brand Ambassadors and advocacy leads to deepen product knowledge, elevate customer experiences, and grow brand awareness across the full portfolio.
- Activate brand campaigns through immersive venue experiences, co-create social-first content, and amplify storytelling via influencers and media to build brand love and consumer advocacy.
Influence and Visibility
- Ensure top visibility and advocacy across cultural hubs that shape trends, securing menu listings, back-bar presence, and customized activations that drive pull and consumer engagement.
- Leverage key occasions (e.g., launches, events, high-traffic weekends) to create memorable brand moments and maintain consistent brand relevance.
Collaboration & Leadership
- Work closely with marketing, culture, and experiential teams to build well-rounded account strategies that align with the broader brand vision.
- Represent the voice of the customer internally, shaping activation plans that resonate locally while collaborating with Culture and Reserve Brand Ambassadors to execute moments of prestige that fuel aspiration.
Outlet & Staff Capability Building
- Supervise and improve rate of sale through incentives, tools, and bartender engagement, ensuring a premium experience at every touchpoint.
What Success Looks Like:
- Increased share of premium spirits in key accounts.
- Stronger outlet advocacy with staff pushing Diageo brands organically.
- Magnificent execution of campaigns and brand events in nightlife hotspots.
- Influential partnerships with tastemakers and trendsetters that create buzz.
- Elevated consumer experience - from serve ritual to storytelling.
- Data-driven performance monitoring and quick commercial pivots where needed.
Qualifications & Experience:
- University degree in Business, Marketing, or a related field.
- 3-5 years of experience in commercial roles within FMCG, alcoholic beverages, or premium consumer goods, with cross-functional exposure being an added advantage.
- Demonstrated success handling high-profile on-trade key accounts and delivering strong commercial results in complex and dynamic trading environments.
- Strong understanding of channel dynamics, pricing strategies, and commercial negotiations-particularly in environments with varying customer sophistication (e.g., Modern Trade, Key Accounts, Field Sales).
- Proven track record of navigating conflict, influence stakeholders, and resolve challenging customer scenarios with confidence and integrity.
Capabilities & Mindset:
- Commercial Foresight: Demonstrates a strong understanding of financial levers (e.g., spend, volume, margin, pricing) and uses them to make sound business decisions that drive profitable growth for UBL and its customers. Balances short-term wins with mid-term growth priorities.
- Persuasive Selling & Influence: Uses proven commercial selling skills to identify customer needs, develop compelling propositions, and create ‘win-win-win' outcomes. Builds strong advocacy with bartenders, venue owners, and key opinion leaders to amplify our portfolio's presence and impact.
- Cultural Intelligence: Deeply understands nightlife culture, consumer trends, and local context to create relevant and aspirational brand experiences in premium spaces.
- Executional Discipline: Identifies and delivers against everyday minimum execution standards using the 365 Essentials principles. Develops and implements customized growth driver plans for priority accounts, ensuring brilliant execution at the point of sale.
- Collaboration & Alignment: Works cross-functionally with internal teams (marketing, advocacy, supply, etc.) and external partners to coordinate and deliver seamless account strategies and commercial plans.
- Strategic Planning & Activity Management: Navigates complex customer relationships with a disciplined, insight-led planning approach. Tracks, measures, and reports on execution standards and account performance, adjusting strategies to continually improve outcomes.
Compliance:
- Ensure full adherence to Diageo's Code of Business Conduct, internal control frameworks, and all applicable global and local standards, policies, and manuals.
- Maintain compliance with GAR audit requirements, local regulatory obligations, and external audit expectations.
- Partner closely with the Commercial Operations team to stay updated on and implement all compliance-related changes, ensuring consistent application across all trade and commercial activities.
Our Purpose and Values:
At UBL, we are driven by the belief that life should be celebrated, every day, everywhere. Our purpose is to create a culture where everyone feels valued, respected, and able to belong. We embrace diversity in all its forms-whether it's gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, education, experiences, or mindsets. This diversity is at the heart of what makes us strong, and we celebrate people for who they are, just by being themselves.
The Opportunity
This is more than just a sales role. It's about influencing culture, building the next generation of premium brand experiences, and capturing the hearts of modern consumers. If you're driven by commercial results and inspired by the world of nightlife, culture, and brand storytelling, then this is your chance to make an impact.
Our Ambition
We aspire to be the best performing, most trusted, and respected consumer products company in the world. Join us as we take our iconic brands to new heights and create new ones, shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers worldwide.
Flexible Working Statement:
Flexibility is key to our success. From part-time and compressed hours to different locations, our people work flexibly in ways to suit them. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you so that you're supported from day one.
Rewards & Benefits Statement:
We recognise and value performance, offering our people a highly competitive Rewards and Benefits package
Diversity statement:
Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.
We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you'll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You'll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.
Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.
Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you.
If you require any reasonable adjustments during the application process, please be sure to let us know.