Vervuld
Commercial Director
Avantes

Our client Avantes is a fast-growing, high-tech company that is a leading player in the global compact spectrometer industry. They operate in various industries, ranging from (bio)medical and agriculture to semiconductor and consumer electronics. Their instruments are found in world-class research laboratories, embedded in devices that save lives or play a crucial part in a production facility to increase efficiency and quality control.

Avantes professional sales team’s success is a function of its responsiveness, pragmatism and industry leading technical know-how. Avantes sales process is rooted in a high degree of customer intimacy resulting in engineered solutions that meet and exceed our customer’s expectations. Avantes sales have grown robustly over their history and the new Commercial Director will be responsible for maintaining and accelerating this growth. Of particular importance in this position is the alignment and positioning of Avantes product portfolio across their current and new strategic markets through a combination of sales and marketing activities. The leadership of this position should be aimed at aligning the sales and marketing organization behind Avantes strategic corporate vision.

For this international and fast growing company, we are looking for an ambitious Commercial Director who is interested in a challenging international role with the possibility to have major part in shaping the growth of the company. Who also likes to work in an informal and open company culture and work together with all colleagues collaboratively to achieve the company’s goals.

The Position

You are responsible for:

• Developing an overall strategy and operational plan for every managed account and align the plans across the organization to deliver monthly and quarterly progress towards strategic goals;

• Creating annual sales plan with identifying more sales opportunities to achieve and exceed sales budgets;

• Managing Global Sales Channels through the direct EU based sales team (appr. 10 employees)), regional sales/support offices (USA and China appr. 25 employees) and our 45 distributors;

• Facilitating and coaching the sales channels in order to assure achievement of sales budgets and building and maintaining strong customer relations;

• Development and implementation of pricing policies;

• Optimization of processes in order to improve the quality of service and profitability of the company;

• Overseeing building up the customer base, targeting large customers in high growth industries;

• Overseeing the analysis of large customer projects at the initial stage of implementation to as to ensure Avantes is meeting customer expectations and maximizing probability of long term success.

The Profile

• You have a technical Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university (e.g. Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Biology), preferably supplemented by a business administration degree;

• You have 8-10 years of experience in sales and sales management;

• a proven and successful track record in Global Sales & Marketing role where you managed a sales & marketing team, international Sales offices and distributors preferably in a High-Tech environment;

• You have management experience, including several years in a responsible position such as Commercial Director or Business Unit Manager. This experience is preferably gained at a manufacturer or system integrator of a high tech product;

• Experience in the Photonics or Optics industry is highly desirable. If you have experience in the spectroscopy field this is a big plus;

• You have a proven track record in building and expanding organizations, both commercially and operationally;

• You are enterprising, tenacious, enthusiastic and think in terms of maximizing opportunities for growth; • You are authentic direct and have an open personality with a high energy level;

• Previous demonstrated success in reaching and exceeding sales goals;

• Excellent command of the English and Dutch language.;

• Be willing to travel, locally and internationally.