Description:
The aim of the Business Development Manager Americas role is to grow market demand of PEF in the full Americas by developing partnerships with brand owners and retail chains, creating pull through the large, integrated value chains through converters to the material and feedstock suppliers. In order to reach that goal, the BDM develops brand partnerships, communication plans and business cases in cooperation with the representatives of the partners in the FMCG industry, finally resulting in PEF (and FDCA) capacity reservations from Avantium's future licensing plants.
Key responsibilities:
- Develop and capture market demand in the Americas.
- Develop new partnerships with brand owners in food & beverage, fiber & textile market (apparel, outdoor and sportswear, home decoration and some technical applications) and cosmetics segments that have a good match in terms of their (sustainability) strategy and Avantium's value proposition in the licensing phase.
- Come to development partnerships with brand owners and retail, putting the right commercial contracts in place with regard to goal setting, milestones, timing, resources as well as the relevant legal context (such as non-disclosure, material transfer, joint development, intellectual property, etc.).
- Translate customer needs/requirements into attractive value proposition and develop the business case with the offtake partner together with the Technical Application Manager.
- Convert these projects into a pipeline of capacity reservations for Avantium's licensees and drive these to commercialization.
- Product Branding: load the Avantium FDCA and PEF brand with the brand owners and retail partners, together building consumer preference and adoption for our customer's products and/or brands.
- Marketing& Communication; in collaboration with the team in Amsterdam, lead the marketing and communication activities in the Americas (e.g., generating visibility, exhibitions, conferences, social media). Represent Avantium at conferences with the goal of increasing the general awareness on the product, building relationships with external contacts and lead generation.
- Market insights: keep track of new market reports, collect relevant data, analyze and provide perspective regarding interest areas and relevance to assist the Director Business Development in translating market insight into strategic directions.
- Reporting opportunity & project progress and forecasts to the team on a bi-weekly basis.
- Follow up on incoming enquiries (e.g., Avantium website, network).
We are a small team operating in The Americas, Europe and Asia. At times, when priorities require, you do not mind contributing or even stepping in for your peers in the other continents.
What do you bring?
To be successful in this role, the Business Development Manager needs to be at home in the world of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). You understand their goals, their solutions, their challenges and way of working. Enthusiasm, resilience, a "can do mentality" and drive to make impact are the necessary skills to make our vision happen. You are a team player, because success can only be reached by working together with your colleagues, our partners and their value chain.
We are looking for a Business Development Manager with the following background:
- Master or Bachelor degree in Business, Commercial, Marketing, Economical or broad Technical area (E.g. Industrial Engineering and Management, Energy and Environmental sciences, Product design, Economics, Marketing).
- At least 10 years of work experience in FMGC industry (e.g., food & beverage, apparel and cosmetics segments), preferably, either directly employed or as a consultant.
- At least 4 year of experience in working with customers in a commercial role as Business Developer or Sales / Marketing.
- Preferred: Familiar to operate in a technology driven industry, comfortable in intellectual property discussions and legal negotiations.
- Excellent communication skills (both oral as written), PowerPoint skills, Excel skills (business case, data analysis) and LinkedIn as a sales tool
- Experience in circular concepts, recycling and branding is advantageous.
- Personal skills: Team worker, enthusiastic, critical, but can-do mentality, result-oriented, ability to work at tight deadlines.
- Languages: Mandatory is fluency in Spanish, company language is English. Being able to speak additional languages is desirable.
- Willingness to travel for 50% to 75% of working time, including regular trips of about 1 week to stay up to date and connected with the Commercial Team in The Netherlands (some 4-6 times per year).