Horticultural Commercial Director

Job type: Commercial
Duration: Full Time
Location: Agile Home/Office Working / Home Based
Skills required: Sales / Commercial Management / Commercial / Strategic Planning / General Management / Consultancy / Management / Marketing
Qualifications: AnySector:Vertical Farming / AgTech / Fresh Produce / Fresh Food / Agriculture / Agri-Business / Horticulture / Fast Moving Consumer Goods / Fresh Food and Drink
Salary: £Competitive package (depending on experience)

Our client’s vision is simple. As a UK based, VC backed, full-stack successful start-up, they have created a real-world operating system that will power the future of farming by helping food producers deliver superior yields, nutrition, and quality. This is a totally unique and proven closed-loop growth & nutritional optimisation platform for all crop production. Their state-of-the-art optical remote sensing technology, machine vision and analytics, allow producers to measure plant physiology and proactively adjust parameters for optimised operations. They enable end-to-end control of the process. Thus, resulting in less waste with increased efficiency, improved margins from higher quality, and healthier consumers from the ability to measure and quantify the nutritional content of our food. This is a significant growing revolution, and you could be an instrumental part of it.

As they roll out their hugely innovative technology, they are majoring on key horticultural sectors and Vertical Farming, initially in the UK and the EU before expanding into North America.

To assist this all, they are looking for a Commercial Director to join them and be instrumental in driving their growth in the defined horticulture sectors. This is an unprecedented opportunity to help embed fresh thinking and innovation into the industry, facilitate new collaborations between key businesses and assist in our clients’ rapidly expanding reach and market share.

What we are looking for…
We are looking for an incredibly well networked, self-motivated, and tenacious commercial horticultural expert. The main remit of the position is to build and develop a multi-channel portfolio of customers across the horticultural sectors in the UK and the EU before expanding into the US markets. The ideal candidate will be able to attract new clients, research new market opportunities and develop long-term relationships that deliver sustainable revenue and profit growth.

You will have a very strong horticultural experience, with a commercial background and excellent communication skills. Over and above English, fluency in other EU languages such as Dutch and Spanish would be very advantageous. You will be approachable and confident with natural senior level sales abilities and a proven track record within the horticulture sectors from large scale equipment manufacturers, to seed houses, to significant growers, through to key contacts in UK/EU & International retailers. To maximise growth of the territories and to gain long term commercial relationships, a background of selling or understanding how technology can benefit growers and the whole horticulture supply chain in the UK and the EU would be highly advantageous. The ability to take initiative and manage numerous projects and individuals at any one time is essential as you expand our client’s operation throughout their designated growth areas.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the Commercial function of their horticultural offering from initial reach out to closing the sale through to the onboarding process with your internal colleagues.
• Proactive management of relationships internally and externally across all the key stakeholders (primarily operations, supply chain and technical).
• Hit Revenue forecasts and shorten the sales cycle.
• Lower the cost of customer acquisition ongoing.
• Commercial KPI & presentation to the Board.
• Work closely with the marketing team to deliver the GTM strategy.
• Negotiate price and volume levels.
• Be the customer champion and communicate customer plans internally to ensure our client is living the customer values.
• Attend events/conferences/virtual meetings to speak about the business and to become an authority on the subject areas of their innovative and ground-breaking products.
• Work with the internal and external marketing team to create unique social media content and output to inform and excite the horticultural sectors about the advantages of deploying their horticultural solutions.
• Support the growth of relationships with Governments and Non-Governmental organisations.
• Source grants and tenders that would be suitable for the company and work alongside the senior management team to complete the application process.

Benefits on Offer

• Potential company options in a high growth early-stage start-up business that has already secured significant investment.
• The opportunity to be involved in the definition of the company culture and its long-term strategy.
• Flexible working, Private medical, pension & other executive benefits.

Our client is a dynamic fast-moving business with colleagues located across the country.  As such, they need people who are comfortable working remotely and using technology to support a productive and effective work environment.

The role will report to the CEO and a highly competitive salary package are on offer for the right individual.

This is a significant role with a business that is looking to be a clear market leader in their defined sectors with their hugely innovative technology. As such it is a hugely career enhancing role for the right individual.

To find out more, please apply via this website or call Max MacGillivray on +44 (0) 01284 715055 to have a confidential conversation quoting Ref: 05602M

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