Business Development Manager - Aerospace & Defense Platforms, Vantage Surface Treatment Technologies

Position Summary & Scope

The role of Business Development Manager for Aerospace & Defense Platforms is critical to the success of our Surface Treatment Technologies (STT) business.  Expect to utilize your experience in military, defense, or aerospace industry contract sales, business development and in gaining new qualifications to this unique role that will drive the rapid growth of our STT business through direct, customer-facing engagements. In a business development capacity, you’ll hunt for new opportunities with some of the largest Aerospace and Defense organizations in the world while vetting targets to drive business growth. You’ll lean on your experience building relationships at the right levels with key OEM’s while knocking down barriers to position our STT products as new qualifications.  You’ll also provide strategic and tactical direction, market knowledge, and product expertise to the global commercial sales network (including sales support) while meeting and exceeding profit and growth targets.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Primary responsibilities of OEM engagement, approval, and new qualification expansion.

• Drive and manage new product qualification & re-qualification activities at OEMs and MROs in Defense, Commercial and General Aviation sectors.

• Ensuring the proper strategies for our Aerospace and Defense market. Develop and manage global market and GTM sales strategies in Aerospace & Defense markets to support the commercial sales organization.

• Developing and executing a Channel Expansion strategy informing our go-to-market approach and options.

• Driving Relationships with Trade Partners or Distribution Partners in specific countries and ensuring qualifications are in place certifying our ability to sell into commercial Aerospace & Defense segments.

• Develop strategic customer accounts in collaboration with Regional Sales Managers worldwide.

• Provide commercial organization with market knowledge, product expertise, and collateral to support value-added, solution selling methods.

• Maintain internal alignment with Customer Service, Product Management, Sourcing, Marketing, R&D, Operations, and other internal functions to meet customer and business expectations.

• Develop market and sales forecasts, pricing trends, and competitor assessments.

• Build and manage business plans for New Product Introductions (NPIs), liaising with customers, allied partners, R&D, Regional Sales Managers, Product Management and other internal functions.

• Develop and maintain high-level relationships with strategic key accounts (OEMs/MROs) and allied partners across the Surface Treatment value chain.  

• Demonstrate a consistent flow of highly qualified new application opportunities.

• Attend applicable trade exhibitions as needed throughout the year

Note: The duties listed above are not all inclusive and may be subject to periodic updating or revision.

Education & Experience

Education: Bachelor's degree required, preferably in a technical or business-related field.

Experience:

• Minimum 5-10 years technical and solution/value selling sales experience in an industrial environment is required.

• 1 – 3 years experience working in Aerospace and Defense markets strongly preferred.

• Experience in gaining qualifications with trade partners or distribution partners to qualify products for specific regions / countries.

• Experience in Surface Treatment or Precision Cleaning industry is preferred but not required.

• Experience in the management of end-to-end sales projects.

• Demonstrated success in sales performance with a past track record of meeting / exceeding targets while obtaining strong support for your company's products on both current and developmental business

• Strong history of identifying and developing new opportunities for products in your area of expertise.

• Experience negotiating contracts and pricing agreements.

• Experience preparing and delivering presentations in front of customer groups and for various levels of company leadership.

• Experience using CRM systems, Outlook and Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint required.

• Experience driving specific KPIs including Target Market Growth, Target Customer Growth, Sales Cycle Time, Average Contract Value, Lead Conversion Rate, Win Rate, Customer Lifetime Value

Knowledge, Skills, & Talents

Detail the specific competencies, attributes,