Marine and Shade Business Development Manager - Australia

Glen Raven makes Sunbrella and Dickson, two of the best known performance fabric brands in the world. In the South Pacific we sell through a distributor and fabricator network that covers external shade, awnings, marine and outdoor furniture, and we are looking for a Business Development Manager to grow that business across Australia and New Zealand.
The role sits within our regional sales team and reports to the Regional Sales Manager for the South Pacific. It is a hands on commercial position rather than a head office one. You will spend a good part of your time in front of distributors, fabricators, OEMs and specifiers, understanding what they are quoting on, where they are losing work and what they need from us to win more of it. The rest of the time you will be building the pipeline behind that, keeping the CRM honest, working with our distributors on stock and range decisions, and feeding market intelligence back into the business so our brand and product teams know what is actually happening on the ground here.
Success in the first year looks like a measurable lift in fabric metres through the shade and marine channels, a clear picture of who the top accounts are and what they need, and distributors who see you as the person they call first. Longer term it looks like new accounts converted from competitor product, a stronger presence in commercial and marine specification, and a role in how we take our loyalty and dealer programmes to market in this region.
Day to day you will manage and grow a defined account base across both channels, identify and convert new fabricator, OEM and retail opportunities, run product training and technical support for customers and their sales teams, prepare and present commercial proposals, work with distributors on forecasting and inventory, represent the brands at trade shows and industry events such as SCIBS, and report regularly on activity, pipeline and market conditions.
You will need solid business development experience in a technical or specification driven product, ideally in textiles, building products, marine or a related industry. Comfort with a distribution model matters, as does the ability to hold a commercial conversation and a technical one in the same meeting. We are after someone organised enough to run their own diary and territory without close supervision, willing to travel regularly across Australia and New Zealand, and holding a current driver's licence and passport. Tertiary qualifications are welcome but experience and results count for more.