Senior Sales Executive, Supply Chain (12 month FTC)

Who we are and what we do

About Hachette UK

Hachette UK is a creative powerhouse and the UK's second largest book publishing group. Our mission is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity.

We're made up of 12 autonomous publishing divisions and over 60 imprints with a rich and diverse history and an incredible range of authors. We're also the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest growing part of our business.

Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Orion, which won Publisher of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards; Little, Brown; John Murray Press; Hodder & Stoughton; Headline; Quercus; Octopus, Bookouture and Dialogue Books. They publish fiction and non-fiction in digital, audio and print format, from the world's best and most diverse authors, including Brit Bennett, Candice Carty-Williams, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Stephen King, Stieg Larsson, Nelson Mandela, Stephenie Meyer, Maggie O'Farrell, Delia Owens, Ian Rankin, J.K. Rowling, Colson Whitehead, and Malala Yousafzai. Hachette Children's Group publishes a wide and vibrant range of books for children across all age ranges, while Hodder Education is a market leader in resources for both primary and secondary schools.

Hachette UK is part of Hachette Livre, the world's third largest trade and educational publisher. As well as our headquarters in Carmelite House, London, and our state-of-the-art book distribution centre in Didcot, Oxfordshire, we have recently opened five new offices in Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Newcastle, and Edinburgh. The UK region also includes offices in Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, the Caribbean, and Ireland.

It's an exciting time to join our business because the publishing market continues to grow and thrive. The UK remains the largest exporter of physical books in the world and book adaptations for film and TV are the foundation of the UK's creative industries.

What you'll be doing

We are looking for an exceptional sales executive to join our digital and online sales team, on a maternity cover fixed-term 12-month contract, working across the Hachette trade and education publishers to help maximise our sales.

This role involves working closely on a key area of our business, the Amazon UK and EU supply chain. You will be working closely with sales, purchasing and delivery data to be sure that our titles are available from key retailers at the right levels. This will be achieved through good communication with our warehouse and customers, as well as internal contacts and teams.

Due to the different aspects of the role, you should have a passion for forecasting and increasing efficiency and be adept at troubleshooting. In addition, you will work well as part of a collaborative and busy online and digital sales team.

Who we are looking for

The ideal candidate will be a great team player who is able to balance and prioritise a busy and varied set of tasks across key areas of the business. You will have excellent attention to detail and a proven ability to use data to make good business decisions.

We welcome applications from sales and operations professionals from all industries and backgrounds to apply. Having had similar roles within publishing, retail and similar industries would prove particularly advantageous, and an interest in online sales is a must.

Sales and/or stock management experience is helpful, and it would be a plus if you have experience using Amazon Vendor Central. You’ll need to be proficient with Microsoft Office (especially Excel and PowerPoint) and ideally have some experience with data analysis.

Skills:

• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Excellent organisational skills
• Good understanding of supply chains and metadata
• A good team-player with a growth mindset
• A commercial outlook with exceptional attention to detail
• Proactive and confident in taking on new tasks
• Resilient and solution-focussed
• Strategic capability

Experience:

• Previous sales or operations experience
• Experience working with Excel and interpreting numerical data
• Knowledge of publishing process
• Knowledge of online and digital markets

What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:

• 28 annual leave days per year, increases to 29 days after 2 years' service and goes up to 30 days after 5 years' (+ bank holidays)
• Generous pension schemes
• Rent deposit loans
• 2 community days per year
• Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)
• Retail discounts through Hachette rewards
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Eye care vouchers
• Wide-ranging training library
• Development programmes (including mentoring)
• Up to 70% off book purchases
• A charity bookshelf
• 12 Staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing and religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

This role can be based at our London, Carmelite House, or at our regional offices in Bristol, Edinburgh or Sheffield, with a blend of in-office (3 days) and homeworking (2 days) per week.

Our commitment

Hachette employs people on the basis of their abilities. We aim to attract and develop talent from a base as broad as the world of readers we want to reach, with a wide and representative range of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic, regional and cultural backgrounds.

If you are shortlisted and need us to make any adjustments to help you attend for interview, please let us know.

The Book Trade Charity offers financial support to people looking to enter the book trade but who may struggle to afford the costs of attending interviews and undertaking junior roles. For more information visit www.booktradeentrysupport.org