Michelle Walsh Email & Phone Number

Sneem

- Managing the rota and staff within my partner’s restaurant. - Dealing with suppliers to secure best prices. - Managing front of house to ensure smooth running, good stock availability and exceptional service levels. - Introduced and maintain accounts system to record sales, wages, procurement costs and margins.

Ireland

- Responsibility for developing a foothold in the Irish retail market, working on the News & Magazine category, primarily within Topaz. - I created an annual schedule of promotional activity worth >€10,000 p/a in publisher income (from a €zero base), plus the incremental sales this activity would have generated. - I worked with a number of stakeholders including Topaz, a POS Production Company and Publishers to develop and site new promotional units in all Topaz stores. This provided a new route to market for collectable product, generating an estimated additional €400k of revenue in 2014 plus €7,500 in publisher income. - Launched a 2014 Topaz range which in the first two months increased category sales by +2%. - I worked closely with UK and Irish publishers, many of which had never invested in retail promotions, to create plans suitable to their brands in order to grow the category and generate funding.

- Responsibility for the total Marketforce magazine sales within the Republic of Ireland, representing £37m retail sales value. - Experienced in working across multi-channel retail multiple groups and Independent retailers, as well as with wholesale. - Through local market knowledge, I created and drove retail marketing plans specific to the Irish market and consumer. - Demonstrated 2% market share growth within initial 6mths in Ireland, outperforming nearest competitor by 10%. - Negotiated strong annual plan with key Irish retailer, securing 40% more promotional activity whilst investing 20% less year-on-year. - Visiting stores regularly to; measure compliance to trade marketing plans, check on competitor activity, build solid relationships with store colleagues to gain an understanding of their issues as well as any opportunities. - Set retailer Early Return targets, in order to reduce waste costs. - Secured key retailer EPOS data, to ensure more relevance in category management and trading discussions.

- Responsibility for the company’s 2nd largest Grocery account, worth c£30m RSV. - Negotiated annual deal, worth >£1m, securing 15% more space than in the previous year. - Line management responsibility for a National Account Executive. - Leveraged key publisher support to secure activity for those smaller publishers with minimal budget/market share. - Devised and implemented a compelling annual marketing plan to drive sales across many of the Marketforce publishers, whilst also securing 85% of Asda’s prime promotional space. - Through persistence and the strength of my relationship with the Asda Buyer and Category Manager, I was able to reverse detrimental range decisions. - Following an in-store compliance project which I undertook, I agreed with Asda that they would produce and site branded labels on all Marketforce fixed space displays at their cost. I also then set up and chaired quarterly meetings involving Asda as well as their independent Merchandisers, to jointly review and agree promotional compliance best practise. - Regularly hosted retail planning workshops acting as liaison between Asda and publishing clients to ensure the Marketforce/Publishing agenda was met, whilst crucially working within publisher clients’ budgets and driving return on investment. - Regularly conducted store visits to gauge any issues the stores were having as regards processes, stock availability and compliance to agreed promotions. Built up a position of trust with store colleagues, which was key to them having an open dialogue with me.

- Joint responsibility for the company’s 2nd largest RMG, worth £32m RSV. - Achieved #1 status in the Wessenden Report (up from #3), for providing a best in class account manager/buyer relationship. - Personally won the Hachette Filipacchi Gold Award in 2008 & Silver in 2009 for outstanding service to one of our biggest publishers. - Helped reduce the RSV decline in this account by 9%, predominately through the implementation of a Focus Title Tracker which I used to secure >£300k ratecard space at no cost to the IPC publishers. - Negotiating annual plans which drove value for money, securing the IPC publishers 100% more in discount on ratecard than in the previous year. - Sourced third party contacts in order to drive and deliver an annual calendar of newspaper linksaves. - Visited stores regularly to measure the impact of promotions and to assess issues and opportunities.

- I managed several medium sized accounts, working across the Convenience and Independent channels, such as Martin McColls, Spar and One-Stop. - I developed a retail data pack for trading discussions which the MMRG Buyer then used as a Best in Class template across the other distributors. This led to a letter of commendation from the MMRG retail buyer. - Through working closely with publisher clients and retail buyers, I develop detailed business plans across key titles/publishers to optimise sales development and track performance and Return On Investment. - By understanding my publisher clients objectives, I would create trade marketing plans with the retailer to give our magazines competitive edge, to drive brand awareness and to ultimately grow sales. - I initiated and implemented annual block booking processes across several of my groups, benefiting both MarketForce and the retailers concerned. - I also instigated several MarketForce exclusive units with various groups as part of long term fixed space agreements. - I worked on several industry initiatives (Just Ask, Project Rangeman) as a MarketForce representative. - I initiated and facilitated Category Partnerships with One-Stop across key MarketForce sectors. - Regular store visits to assess promotional compliance, copy availability and issues and opportunities.

I managed several SME’s; Costcutter, GT News, Texaco, Brittany Ferries, Independent Sales Clubs.I was responsible for initiating the relationship with GT News, Texaco and Brittany Ferries and managing them going forward.I improved performance across all accounts through monitoring sales, range and building magazine promotional campaigns to drive consumer awareness and increase sales.

Higher National Certificate, Business, Distinction

Higher National Certificate in Business. I completed the course during evenings and weekends whilst working full time. I achieved.

Education record