Job Title: Strategic Market Development ManagerDepartment: Sales
Location: Huntersville, NC
Reports To: VP Sales & Strategy
The Strategic Market Development Manager drives top-line growth by identifying, validating, and securing high-value commercial opportunities across core strategic verticals:
Building Materials,
Durable Goods (e.g., consumer and commercial appliances), and
Consumables (e.g., filtration media, nonwovens, wipes).
This role bridges upstream market discovery with aggressive, hands-on business development. You will leverage ingredient brand licensing models with technical solutions to create value propositions that build a qualified pipeline from scratch, establish strategic partnerships with tier-1 OEMs and converters, and transition validated programs into scalable commercial accounts.
Key Responsibilities- Targeted Market Exploration: Conduct rigorous market segmentation and opportunity sizing within target verticals (Building Products, Durables, and Consumables) to prioritize high-margin growth vectors.
- Hands-on Business Development: Lead targeted outreach to prospective B2B brand partners, key decision-makers, and OEMs; articulate technical differentiation and ROI to close new business.
- Ingredient Brand & Licensing Execution: Structure, negotiate, and implement co-branding, trademark licensing, and joint-development agreements that elevate customer product positioning.
- Go-to-Market Strategy: Partner with R&D, Regulatory, and Marketing to build compelling business cases, tailored value propositions, and market-entry playbooks.
- Partner & Ecosystem Development: Identify and cultivate relationships across the entire value chain-including raw material suppliers, masterbatchers, compounders, distributors, and specifiers.
- Pipeline Delivery & Hand-off: Build and maintain a measurable pipeline of qualified, stage-gated opportunities, ensuring seamless commercial transition to the core sales team.
- Performance Tracking: Establish and report on milestone-driven KPIs (pipeline value, conversion rates, time-to-market, and licensed partner acquisition) to executive leadership.
Qualifications- Education: Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field; MBA preferred.
- Experience: 7+ years of progressive commercial experience in business development, strategic market development, or technical product management.
- Execution Track Record: Proven success opening doors, executing multi-year growth strategies, and converting greenfield opportunities into long-term revenue.
- Cross-Functional Fluency: Strong ability to navigate technical, regulatory, and commercial conversations with external executives and internal R&D/Legal teams.
Preferred Pluses / Differentiators- Industry Network & Rolodex: An active, established network of decision-makers within Building Materials (commercial/residential), Durable Goods (appliances, consumer durables), or Consumables (filtration, wipes, nonwovens).
- Ingredient Branding & Licensing: Direct experience with ingredient branding models, brand licensing agreements, or value-added component marketing.
- Material Science Familiarity: Background in specialty chemicals, polymers, coatings, treated textiles, or antimicrobial technologies.
Success Measures- Pipeline Growth: Velocity and total dollar value of qualified, stage-gated opportunities in target sectors.
- Commercial Conversions: Successful execution of new brand licensing agreements and validated hand-offs to the core commercial team.
- Market Entry Speed: Rapid validation and commercial viability testing of prioritized segments and product platforms.
