National Sales Head/Manager

National Sales Head/Manager

Location: Huntsville, AL

Onsite Flexibility: Hybrid

Job Details

• Position Type: Direct Hire
• Pay / Salary: $120,000 $150,000 / Year (USD)
• Travel Requirements: Domestic travel for customer meetings, supplier discussions, warehouse reviews, and industry events as required. International travel to headquarters in India as needed. Travel approximately 1 week per month.
• Work Authorization: Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

Job Summary

This role is the North American commercial leadership position for an established automotive parts supplier the North American arm of an Indian engineering group with more than 50 years of experience serving global customers across automotive components, industrial cleaning equipment, electric vehicles, castings, and injection molding. The organization has supplied high-quality automotive parts to North American OEMs for more than two decades from world-class manufacturing facilities and is now expanding its regional presence. We are seeking a senior, hands-on commercial leader to own the North America region, deliver sales targets, manage strategic customer relationships end to end, oversee the Detroit warehouse operated through a third-party logistics partner, and serve as the key interface between the India-based engineering teams and customer engineering, purchasing, quality, and plant teams in North America. The role reports to the Joint Managing Director and works with India-based application engineering, R&D, sales and marketing, quality, logistics, and finance teams, as well as North American OE customers and the third-party warehouse operator in Detroit. The incumbent will be supported by an experienced sales engineer with 15 years of relevant industry experience. This is a backfill role for a long-tenured team member who is retiring, and the organization is seeking someone who can be with the company for the long term. The role can be based anywhere in Michigan, northern Ohio, or northern Indiana. Current largest customers include forklift and heavy equipment OEMs such as Crown, Toyota, Peterbilt, Caterpillar, Komatsu, and John Deere. The business began with electro-mechanical and pneumatic products and is growing in electronic products; candidates with an understanding of electronics or education in electronics to understand customer needs and translate them to offshore manufacturing teams are strongly preferred.

Key Responsibilities

1. Business Development and Market Growth

• Own the North America sales strategy, annual budget, revenue targets, and regional growth plan.
• Develop new OE and Tier-1 accounts and maintain a qualified, regularly updated opportunity pipeline.
• Promote the full product range with customer purchasing, engineering, and quality teams and look for new product opportunities.
• Monitor competitor activity, pricing trends, technology shifts, and regulatory developments, and provide actionable market intelligence to the India leadership team.

2. Key Account Management

Take full ownership of customer relationships, from initial enquiry through delivery, payment, and ongoing account growth.

• Represent the organization professionally at all customer levels, from purchasing and engineering leadership to plant operations.
• Manage enquiry processing by qualifying opportunities, coordinating costing and quotations with India, submitting proposals, and driving timely follow-up.
• Commercial negotiation pricing, annual price agreements, development and tooling cost recovery, payment terms.
• Order management schedules, EDI and customer portals, acknowledgement and change management.
• Manage payment cycles, follow up on overdue receivables, and maintain outstanding balances within agreed targets.
• Customer satisfaction own the scorecard, respond to ratings, and close out actions.

3. New Product Development and Project Management

• Act as the primary interface between the India engineering team and customers for all new product development programs.
• Drive program timelines across samples, prototypes, PPAP, and SOP, ensuring both internal and customer teams meet agreed milestones.
• Coordinate vehicle-level testing, validation, and homologation at the customer end.

4. Warehouse and Inventory Management Detroit

• Manage third-party warehouse performance across cost, accuracy, dispatch reliability, space utilisation, and service levels.
• Monitor inventory against customer schedules and trigger replenishment from India in time.
• Ensure proper storage, handling, rotation, traceability, and stock accountability.

5. Logistics and Delivery

• Drive 100% on-time delivery in coordination with the warehouse operator and India logistics team.
• Handle import documentation, customs clearance, and compliance with the broker and forwarder.
• Resolve delays, damages, short shipments, and freight claims, and report root cause on premium freight.

6. Quality, Warranty, and Customer Support

• Respond to customer complaints on site and coordinate containment, segregation, sorting, and rework at customer locations as required.
• Work closely with the India quality team to submit 8D reports, PPAP documentation, and other customer-required quality documents on time.
• Monitor quality and delivery performance against targets and drive corrective and preventive improvement actions.
• Coordinate warranty returns collection, analysis, customer closure, and commercial settlement.

Required Skills

• 20 25 years of experience in automotive sales, key account management, or business development.
• Direct experience handling OEM and Tier-1 customers in North America.
• Strong commercial capability, including costing, quotation, negotiation, contract management, and receivables control.
• Hands-on, self-driven, and comfortable operating with a high level of ownership.
• Ability to work independently in the United States while maintaining close coordination with India-based teams across time zones.
• Experience selling to automotive or earth-moving equipment OEMs (e.g., Crown, Toyota, Peterbilt, Caterpillar, Komatsu, John Deere).
• Experience obtaining new RFQs and converting them into agreements, as well as pursuing new product business.
• Understanding of electronics or education in electronics sufficient to understand customer needs and requirements and translate them to offshore manufacturing teams.

Preferred Skills

• Engineering degree preferred, given the role's technical customer interface and engineering liaison responsibilities.
• Working knowledge of OE customer systems APQP, PPAP, 8D, EDI, and customer portals.
• Experience with import procedures, shipping, customs, and 3PL warehouse operations.
• Existing relationships and contacts with North American OEMs and Tier-1s.

Education Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering required.
• MBA preferred.

Required Experience

• Minimum 20 25 years of total experience; minimum 15 20 years of overall industry experience.
• Direct experience in automotive OEM or heavy/earth-moving equipment sales and key account management in North America.

Benefits

• Medical, Vision, and Dental Insurance Plans
• 401k Retirement Fund

About GTT

GTT is a minority-owned staffing firm and a subsidiary of Chenega Corporation, a Native American-owned company in Alaska. We highly value diverse and inclusive workplaces and support Fortune 500 organizations across banking, financial services, technology, life sciences, biotech, utilities, and retail sectors throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Job Number: 26-11390

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