Director of Sales USSALDIR

Key Responsibilities

Commercial & P&L Leadership

• Own customer profitability, sales performance, margins, and commercial results for assigned accounts.
• Develop and execute strategies to improve revenue, profitability, and customer economics.
• Lead customer pricing strategies and negotiate price increases to recover PPV, inflation, labor, freight, tariffs, material increases, and other cost pressures.
• Develop detailed cost breakdowns and financial analyses to support pricing and new business decisions.
• Partner with Finance, Operations, Engineering, and Supply Chain to improve overall program profitability.

Business Development

• Lead global new business development activities to achieve annual sales and booking objectives.
• Develop strategic growth plans across OEM, Tier I/II, aftermarket, and industrial markets.
• Lead commercial strategy for RFQs, including pricing, cost analysis, competitive positioning, and profitability.
• Identify new customers, applications, technologies, and markets for the company’s extrusion capabilities.
• Maintain a strong business development pipeline and ensure opportunities progress to award.

Customer & Account Management

• Serve as a senior executive-level contact for strategic customers.
• Develop and execute account strategies focused on retention, profitability, and strategic growth.
• Lead complex commercial negotiations and resolve customer issues.
• Build relationships across customer purchasing, engineering, quality, operations, finance, and executive leadership.

Global Sales Leadership

• Lead, develop, and hold accountable a global team of Sales Account Managers.
• Establish sales, profitability, new business, and account-management objectives.
• Coach the team in financial analysis, pricing, negotiations, and business development.
• Establish consistent forecasting, account planning, and performance-management processes.

Strategic & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partner with Engineering and Operations to commercialize new products and applications.
• Identify opportunities in automotive fluid and vapor management, thermal management, coolant, fuel, transmission oil cooler, and other extrusion applications.
• Develop growth strategies for automotive aftermarket and industrial markets.
• Provide executive leadership with accurate forecasts, market intelligence, customer strategies, and commercial recommendations.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive business development, sales, or commercial leadership experience.
• Required: Demonstrated business development experience with both Ford Motor Company and General Motors.
• Proven P&L or customer profitability ownership.
• Strong financial acumen and demonstrated ability to develop and defend detailed product cost breakdowns.
• Proven experience negotiating customer price increases and recovering PPV and other cost increases.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing economics, costing, margins, and profitability.
• Experience leading and developing a global sales/account-management organization.
• Proven track record of new business development and profitable revenue growth.
• Strong executive presence, negotiation skills, and customer relationship management capabilities.
• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally.

• Experience managing global business across North America, Mexico, Europe, and/or Asia.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, or a related field.  Equivalent combination of education and relevant work experience will be considered.

Key Success Measures

• Achievement of sales, profitability, and new business targets.
• Growth in strategic customer accounts and market share.
• Successful recovery of PPV and other cost increases.
• Customer profitability and margin improvement.
• Profitable and strategic new business awards.
• Sales forecast accuracy and commercial execution.
• Development and performance of the global sales organization.

Leadership Profile

The ideal candidate is a strategic, financially sophisticated, and commercially aggressive leader who understands both the economics of manufacturing and the complexities of global automotive customers. This individual must be comfortable moving from detailed cost analysis to executive-level negotiations and be capable of challenging customers when commercial conditions do not support a sustainable business. The successful candidate will be a business leader first and salesperson second, with a proven ability to drive profitable growth, develop high-performing teams, and create long-term customer value.