The Senior Manager - Vertical Marketing leads the development of growth strategies for 2-3 of Timken's strategic vertical markets, as well as priority Key Accounts. Managing a small team of Vertical Market Insights Specialists, the Senior Manager coordinates cross-functional strategy creation and alignment across Product, Commercial, Operations and Regional teams to frame and evaluate where-to-play and how-to-win choices designed to accelerate organic growth. The Senior Manager also helps build and codify proprietary strategy processes, frameworks and approaches used to create repeatable growth strategies across verticals and accounts.
Key Responsibilities: Lead vertical and Key Account strategy development
- Lead strategy development for assigned strategic vertical markets and priority Key Accounts.
- Translate market, application, customer, competitive, and account insights into strategic options for where to play, how to win, and what must be true.
- Define the strategy agenda, key questions, workplan, decision points, and outputs required to move from insight development to growth strategy.
Manage and develop members of the Vertical Market Insights Specialist team
- Manage a small team of Vertical Market Insights Specialists, including workstream assignment, coaching, feedback, and capability development.
- Ensure research, analysis, synthesis, and deliverables meet the quality, rigor, and strategic relevance required to support high-confidence growth decisions.
- Build team capability in Timken's proprietary strategy processes, frameworks, research methods, and activation planning approaches.
Orchestrate cross-functional alignment and decision making
- Coordinate cross-functional strategy work across Product, Commercial, Operations, Finance, and Regional teams.
- Facilitate working sessions to align stakeholders on market attractiveness, customer needs, competitive position, opportunity priorities, and activation choices.
- Surface key assumptions, tradeoffs, risks, and dependencies that must be resolved to advance strategic options
Guide opportunity prioritization and portfolio choices
- Lead opportunity prioritization across assigned verticals and Key Accounts using structured criteria and evidence-based discussion.
- Help teams evaluate market attractiveness, strategic fit, customer value, ability to win, capability requirements, accessibility, and confidence.
- Frame opportunity portfolios that balance near-term revenue potential, capability-building moves, and longer-term strategic growth bets
Lead market activation planning
- Lead development of market activation plans for prioritized opportunities, including target segments, priority applications, value propositions, channel approach, sales motion, proof points, validation needs, and execution milestones.
- Partner with Product, Commercial, Operations, and Regional teams to define the actions, owners, resources, and milestones required to execute priority opportunities.
Help build and improve repeatable strategy processes and frameworks
- Help build, codify, and improve Timken's proprietary processes, frameworks, templates, and ways of working for vertical and Key Account strategy development.
- Capture learnings from completed vertical and account strategy work and incorporate them into repeatable tools, playbooks, and team practices.
- Promote consistent use of strategy methods across assigned work while adapting approaches to the specific needs of each vertical, account, or opportunity
Frame decisions and communicate strategic implications
- Create and review concise, executive-ready materials that frame choices, tradeoffs, assumptions, options, and activation requirements.
- Present strategy outputs and implications to senior stakeholders in a way that supports alignment, resource focus, and follow-through.
- Ensure strategy work clearly connects insight, opportunity selection, value proposition, activation planning, and expected growth impact.
Required qualifications:- Bachelor's degree in Business, Economics, Engineering, Marketing, or related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
- 7+ years of experience in B2B strategy, marketing, product management, business development, consulting, or a related commercial role; industrial market experience preferred.
- Experience leading strategy development, market activation planning, or growth initiatives in complex B2B markets.
- Demonstrated ability to manage and develop team members, including coaching, workstream direction, feedback, and capability building.
- Experience applying and improving structured frameworks, methodologies, or playbooks to identify opportunities, shape strategic choices, and drive growth.
- Strong analytical, synthesis, storytelling, communication, and collaboration skills; able to create and review concise, executive-ready materials.
- Strong stakeholder management skills, with experience aligning cross-functional and senior stakeholders around strategic choices, tradeoffs, and execution priorities.
- Proficiency in Excel and PowerPoint; experience with Power BI, survey tools, CRM data, or other analytical platforms preferred.
- Ability and willingness to travel for customer interviews, field research, internal working sessions, and stakeholder alignment.
