Sales Manager

Position description :

Responsible for sales, market development and customer relations management within the Abrasive market.

Main responsibilities :

• Accountable for the commercial success of Abrasive business in the area of competence
• Ensure compliance with Ahlstrom Group and Building Materials Division sales strategies, policies and guidelines
• Provide customer and market insight and build growth strategy and implementation plans
• Execute regional sales strategy
• Continuously seek new growth opportunities within Abrasive business
• Ensure consistent achievement of key performance indicators (measured through growth, profit, revenue, margin, efficiency KPIs)
• Manage technical issues and opportunities with customers, by acting as contact point between customers and internal technical customer service / product development and operations
• Cooperate to establish annual sales targets and to build the sales budget
• Work closely with own logistics and technical / development teams and those of the customers to ensure a profitable business development
• Be knowledgeable in customers' activities in terms of payment, ability to pay on time and credit history
• Manage receivables, past due amounts and finished good stock
• Monitor sales volumes and profitability performance against plan
• Report sales volumes and sales activities on a monthly basis
• Ensure that proper sales processes and procedures are followed, including terms and conditions, Customer Contact system, consignment programs, exclusivity arrangements, and warehouse programs
• Work with business unit to ensure Ahlstrom is properly represented at trade shows and industry organizations

Profile and qualifications :

• University Bachelor / Master degree in paper / chemical engineering or equivalent is preferred requirement.
• As alternative, University Bachelor / Master degree in marketing or economics, if combined with meaningful technical sales or technical customer service experience
• Minimum 4 years of sales, product or business management experience with strong technical insight, preferably within Abrasive business
• Excellent interpersonal and negotiation skills
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Technical approach and problem solving skills
• Good leadership skills
• Able to develop close networking relationships at all level of organization, in different languages and cultures
• Excellent organizational skills
• End-to-end process understanding
• Strong drive for delivering results
• Knowledge of IT systems (Ahlstrom software applications, Microsoft office tools)
• Languages : Fluent English and a second language, preferably German. French is definitively plus.
• Availability for travelling extensively - more than 50% of the time

Location : France -preferably Grand Est-, DACH