Sr. Model Line Business Manager

General Summary

The Sr. Model Line Business Manager acts as the vehicle’s chief advocate, championing and marshaling resources to support, promote and strengthen the model for maximum marketplace success and profitability. As the “go to person” for the assigned model, the Sr. Manager maintains comprehensive knowledge of the vehicle, its target customers, dealer engagement levels and the competitive segment marketplace dynamics to provide input for collaborative development of the near-term sales, marketing and product plans. The position leads the collaboration with Kia America (KUS) Marketing for the assigned model’s product-market positioning strategy, becoming the messaging subject matter expert and providing strategic review/input on messaging being used to achieve sales and marketing goals. The Sr. Manager will manage up to four assigned vehicle lines with focus on 12-18 forward-looking months. 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Priority One - 15%

Expertise

• Maintain continuous, 360-degree understanding of assigned model’s marketplace dynamics, segment trends, target customers behavior, key competitor actions, model advantages and vulnerabilities.
• Develop clear understanding of target customer priorities through collaboration with research division and dealer communication feedback loop.

Priority Two – 15%

Strategy

• Provide upstream strategic guidance to position vehicle in optimal manner for relevant market differentiation and launch success. Guidance is based on a strong grasp of consumer priorities, assigned vehicle’s advantages, and unserved market opportunities/white space.
• Collaborate with Marketing and Research in developing the target customer profiles and market segmentation strategies.
• Determine and propose prioritized product attributes to be communicated to secure desired market positioning.

Priority Three – 25%

Market Messaging

• As vehicle messaging owner, the Sr. manager will work upstream cross-functionally, to ensure consistent vehicle positioning and salient messaging of model in all communication touch points (Marketing, Sales, PR, Sales Training, etc.).
• Provide review and input on advertising messaging development to ensure established product attributes and key selling points are represented in a correct and relevant manner.

Priority Four –20%

Sales Operations

• Collaborate with field leadership to manage and optimize media messaging and provide strategic and tactical inputs to drive the monthly go-to-market plan.
• Act as KUS Marketing and Product Planning Department (PPD) liaison to all regions for receiving feedback on product, packaging and market needs.
• Provide review and input development of Monroney Labels for accuracy and messaging consistency.
• Design and develop materials to assist dealership sales personnel with understanding Kia’s value advantage positioning for assigned model.

Priority Five – 15%

Business Performance Management

• Collaborate with Product, Sales and Marketing in jointly setting the quantitative and qualitative objectives for each model; and in identifying the key product, marketing and sales programs required to achieve the set objectives.
• Prepare Monthly Performance Reports and Analysis to inform Executive team on various performance metrics such as market share, changes in pricing, incentives, demographics, and cross-shopping.
• Report on sales and trim achievement against plan and identify downstream risks/opportunities, at national and regional level.
• Monitor and report on competitive activity that may impact KUS sales plans.

Priority Six – 10%

Product

• Collaborate with PPD and Product Quality (PQ) to provide immediate and upstream input (up to 18 months prior to new model year changeover) to ensure assigned product meets Sales and Marketing channel marketplace needs.
• Act as KUS Sales and Marketing liaison to PPD and PQ organization.
• Develop and maintain firsthand expertise on managed vehicles through direct product usage reflecting typical customer experiences, to identify product strengths and weaknesses for key input in development of marketing and sales training strategies and communications.

This list of essential responsibilities and duties is not exhaustive and may be supplemented and changed as necessary by management.

Qualifications/Education

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience required
• Master’s degree in business or related field preferred

Job Requirement

Personally Performed Duties

• Prepare monthly management reports on vehicle revenue, sales and inventory levels
• Prepare detailed marketing and sales operation plan with identified resources to support annual volume target
• Hold quarterly conference calls with KUS regions / field team to provide periodic product / marketing / operational updates and receive feedback
• Make presentations as needed to executive management, partners and dealer body.

Overall Related Experience 

• Minimum 8-10 years in Automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Marketing, Sales Operations or Field Sales Experience. Must have experience in at least one, but preferably two of the three roles listed.
• 1+ years of supervisory experience preferred.
• Strong understanding of Auto business and landscape.

Specialized Skills and Knowledge Required

• Ability to solve multi-dimensional / cross-discipline problems
• Excellent presentation skills
• Understand basic concepts of automotive product marketing strategies in all aspects of integrated marketing communications, reporting, measurement.
• Works proactively to head off issues before they become a problem
• Highly organized with strong time management skills
• Ability to clearly convey (written and oral) learnings as well as recommendation that will result towards action.
• Ability to quickly react to and manage change
• Ability to work well with cross-functional teams
• Ability to effectively manage multiple assignments
• Adequately applies and effectively distributes ideas and material resources by clarifying the priorities, activity sequences, and planning of projects/tasks
• Clearly recognizes both internal and external customers and the impact that task performance could have on them
• Understands business and market trends to meet changing customer needs with adequate timing; applies necessary information to task planning and decision making
• Fully understands the purpose and content of the organization’s strategic plan, and executes tasks in alignment with larger organizational objectives
• Achieves process optimization by evaluating the adequacy of resource distribution between the different processes; eliminating conflicting factors to efficiently coordinate and integrate factors

Other Requirements

• Physical Requirements: Frequent office-based work performed in a corporate environment. Occasional driving duties are required.
• Up to 15% domestic and/or international travel.
• Must have a valid driver’s license. This position requires driving as an essential function and related to the legitimate business purpose for this role. Alternative transportation is not a practical substitute due to time and cost considerations.
• Job demands may include reading (documents), detailed work, confidentiality, problem solving, language, reasoning skills, oral communication, written communication, customer contact, ability to effectively present information in one-on-one and small group situations to customers, vendors, and other employees, multiple concurrent tasks, ability to work with constant interruptions, etc.
• Must be able to maintain focus and attention to detail in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to analyze information and make sound decisions under time constraints.
• Problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently
• Must be able to respond to challenges with poise and agility.
• Ability to handle competing priorities effectively and with composure.
• Other duties as assigned.