Christopher Read Email & Phone Number

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

Tipton, England, United Kingdom

Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

• Overseeing the commercial relationships with several companies including Unilever and Colgate.• Leading and training a sales team of 30 members, leading to accomplishing all set team targets.• Achieving high customer satisfaction levels by consistently listening and meeting customers’ needs.• Building strong relationships with suppliers, resulting in increasing sales numbers and new suppliers base.• Creating and defining investing strategies, boosting incremental sales and executions.• Ensuring pricing in the market and that all customers remain competitive whilst keeping pricing stable.• Reducing any grey market stock entering the market through regular store walks.

Leicester, United Kingdom

• Sourced and helped win multi million pound contracts including John Lewis Partnership, Waitrose, J Sainsbury’s, Next, TJX Europe, Hilton Hotels Worldwide and CEX.• Implemented new processes to find new vendors both internationally and locally.• Supervised 15k SKU’s with a budget of £17 million, successfully re-tendered £700,000k of catering equipment whilst managing a 23% SKU reduction and 19% net savings.• Coached and mentored a sourcing assistant, becoming a full-time member of the team.

Banbury, England, United Kingdom

• Sourced within the Far East area to negotiate a fixed rate shipping contract with a shipping agent; later sourced the UK and the EU area for both product components and packaging.• Converted several areas into 1-2 suppliers whilst negotiating better payment terms and rebates.• Saved £17k of a £100k budget by moving from 8 active cardboard suppliers to only 1.• Handled stock levels of 650+ lines, ordered to forecast and ensured all stocks remained at the ideal level.

Southampton, United Kingdom

Stock control and sourcing branded food for export as required by customers

Far East sourcing and importing, stock control.