XOXO SODA
Head of Grocery
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Head of Grocery
Location: London, UK (hybrid)
Reporting to: Rory Paterson, Co-Founder & CEO
About us
XOXO is one of the UK's fastest-growing drinks brands, built to redefine what functional beverages can be. We're a scale-up, which means adaptability, ownership, and speed matter.
We're looking for a Head of Grocery to own our largest and most important channel outright. This is a step up from account management: you'll set the grocery strategy, carry the channel P&L, and be accountable for where XOXO sits on shelf across every UK multiple.
You'll inherit a live estate including Sainsbury's, Co-op, Boots, and Ocado, plus a pipeline of new listings, and you'll decide how we win the accounts we don't have yet. You'll work directly with the founders on commercial strategy, and as volume grows, you'll build the team underneath you.
What you'll own
Channel strategy and P&L
- Full ownership of the grocery channel: revenue, margin, trade spend, and promotional investment
- Set the multi-year account roadmap, deciding where we invest, what we walk away from, and what good looks like by retailer
- Build and defend the annual grocery budget with the CEO, and forecast with enough accuracy that supply chain can act on it
- Design the trading terms architecture across the channel rather than negotiating each account in isolation
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Accounts and negotiation
- Lead JBPs, annual negotiations, and range reviews across all grocery accounts
- Hold senior relationships with buyers, category managers, and buying controllers, and open top-to-top access where it moves the needle
- Convert the accounts we're not yet in, taking each from first meeting to first order
- Drive distribution, space, and rate of sale as three separate disciplines, not one number
Category and activation
- Build category selling stories from EPOS, Nielsen, and panel data that make it easy for a buyer to say yes
- Set the retailer-specific activation plan with marketing, and hold it accountable for return on trade investment
- Own range and pack architecture decisions by retailer, and lead NPD launches into grocery from listing through to first repeat order
Team and cross-functional leadership
- Build and lead the grocery account team as the channel scales, starting with your first hire
- Set the operating rhythm with supply chain on forecast accuracy, availability, and service level
- Represent XOXO at retailer meetings, trade shows, and industry events as the senior commercial voice for the channel
- Work with finance and operations so commercial commitments and operational reality stay aligned
Who you are
- Commercially serious and credible in a room with senior retailer stakeholders.
- Entrepreneurial and hands-on, because at this stage, you'll be building the deck as well as presenting it.
- Comfortable making decisions on incomplete data and living with them.
- A strong negotiator who understands that the relationship outlasts the deal.
- Genuinely interested in the better-for-you category and in what it takes to build a challenger brand.
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Essential experience
- Significant experience managing UK grocery accounts in FMCG, ideally food and beverage, including direct ownership of at least one top-four multiple.
- Track record of leading JBPs and annual negotiations end to end, not supporting them.
- Full P&L accountability for a channel or a major account portfolio, including trade spend management.
- Evidence of winning new listings from scratch, not just growing inherited ones.
Preferred experience
- Soft drinks or chilled functional categories.
- Scaling a challenger brand through a grocery step-change.
- Line management, or a clear readiness to take it on.
- Working closely with founders in a scale-up.
Why join
- Competitive salary plus equity.
- Hybrid working.
- 25 days holiday plus UK bank holidays.
- A culture-led brand with real momentum.
- A channel you get to run rather than inherit.
- Free XOXO sodas at our Borough Market office.
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