Vice President, North American Sales & Marketing (Packaging)

Cielo Executive Search is seeking a Vice President of Sales and Marketing for North American Protective Packaging on behalf of our client, Sealed Air (SEE). SEE designs and delivers packaging solutions that protect essential goods transported worldwide, preserve food, enable e-commerce and digital connectivity, and help create a global supply chain that is touchless, safer, less wasteful, and more resilient.

SEE’s people are entrepreneurial innovators and problem solvers committed to bringing unique insights and solutions to the needs of its customers, stakeholders, and society. SEE is creating a community of inventors, problem solvers, and future makers who are passionate about fulfilling our purpose.

SEE generated $5.3 billion in revenue in 2022 and has approximately 16,300 employees who serve customers in 120 countries/territories. To learn more, visit www.sealedair.com.

Reporting to the President, Global Protective, this leader will serve as the revenue operational leader for North Americas Protective markets for all commercial sales functions to accelerate new market share and drive revenue within our Sales and Marketing businesses of $1.2B in revenue.

The role will be highly strategic, with direct P&L responsibility for the sales generating functions responsibility for driving sales growth, commercial performance, and health of the Protective Sales and Marketing business unit through strategic leadership and oversight. Accountable for commercial functions including Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Technical Service and Portfolio Management

You will be an empowered business leader leveraging five (10) direct reports who will drive subject matter expertise in their functions as you steer the ship in a singular direction to drive alignment of our marketing, sales, and national account strategies. The role will be critical in creating a singular commercial sales roadmap for the Protective vertical that links a cohesive strategy with action targets and focus areas. By leveraging cross functional relationships with vertically integrated supporting functional leaders in Supply Chain, Finance, Sustainability and Sales Enablement, you will bring the topline vision to the table and ensure all supporting enablers are working on the right strategies, products, and sales excellence offerings that align with the growth areas.

As we continue to nurture a caring, high-performance, growth culture through our transformation, you will be asked to energize and empower your team to achieve ambitious financial, operational, and people development objectives. Lead through accountability and embody the values of Integrity, Determination, Collaboration, and Innovation.

As the VP, NAM Protective, you will:

1. Accelerate profitable top-line growth by leading a high-performing team of 180+ sales professionals across various functions, including Field Sales, National Accounts, Customer Service, and Technical Service. Develop and implement an innovative, action-oriented sales strategy to optimize resource deployment, cultivate new sales approaches, and penetrate new market segments. Attract and retain top talent to build a world-class sales organization.
2. Strategic Planning: Lead the development and execution of a winning sales strategy for North America. Ensure we have the right mix of distribution and direct business to sustainably optimize sales. Develop strategic relationships/contractual relationships that reduce the volatility in sales based on raw material volatility Collaborate with marketing, I&D, and operations to ensure alignment with sales
3. Be an Engaged Change Champion: Proactively advocate change; knock down barriers before they become obstacles and facilitate thoughtful conversations to help your team understand the benefits of being solution creators vs. problem solvers.
4. Drive Transformation through Growth: Accelerate Sealed Air’s automation, sustainability, and digital initiatives to expand our product offerings over the next 5 years.

How will you Impact?

Lead, Inspire, Manage, and Coach a High-Performing Sales & Marketing Team:

• • Coach team to manage wide and deep within their sales pipeline.
  • Providing support and guidance for Sales Director leader to advance and pipeline the right targeted customer base to advance the opportunity funnel in side-step with our marketing goals. Be a strategic advisor on contract negotiations and relationship management.
  • Conducting comprehensive reviews of business unit performance and developing strategies to action on with intersecting sales, marketing, and portfolio levers to grow the vertical.
  • Collaborating with the Sales and Head of Sales Enablement to design incentive compensation strategies that drive performance/ profitability focused on penetrating new markets and pro -actively selling; shifting away from account manager mentality; and
  • Create a high performing team by engaging in development conversations, motivating/mentoring and creating and cascade a meaningful and action-oriented vision that produces results. Infusing ownership and accountability mindset with pointed actions that tie back to KPI monitoring.

Demonstrate Market and Solution Knowledge:

• • Understand and clearly articulate Protective Packaging solutions, products, campaigns and programs to leaders, teams and key customers.
  • Develop and maintain clear competitive advantages in the market with a focus on direct sales and expansion of portfolio offerings into new segments leveraging new technologies and sustainable materials.
  • Identify how to grow portfolio through innovative solutions and designs focused on reducing third party.
  • Evaluating Marketing strategies and impact across product portfolio, providing guidance on key initiatives (e.g., go-to-market strategy) and priorities (e.g., customer segments)

Maintain and Build Trustworthy Customer Relationships:

• • Embedded a customer centric approach to our sales and marketing strategies.
  • Lead and drive the development of the growth plans for Protective customers.
  • Build a better intimacy with core customers to understand their future needs and develop a partnership of need based integration; and
  • Develop adequate and trackable commercial KPI sales metrics for Sales and Marketing that align with overarching business OKRs and ensure leadership team deploys actionable strategies to achieve.

Drives Profitability Improvements through Functional Partnership and Innovation:

• • Regularly review and improve Business Unit profitability and growth strategies to deliver top line revenue and profitable growth.
  • Partner with FP&A to build financial forecasts (short/mid/long -term).
  • Providing input to Product Management/l&D regarding new product development and market-specific needs.

1. • Collaborating with Operations to determine operational strategies (e.g., make-to-order, supply plan) to enable growth and protect commercial operations.

Successful Outcomes:

Drive a unified, topline action and accountable commercial sales and marketing 5-year strategic roadmap for Protective Sales and Marketing that is aligned with SEE’s growth goals that nurture a caring, high performance, growth culture. Outcomes will be deployed by:

• Build process, rigor and strategy around the Protective Sales and Marketing business growth plan.
• Shift how we look at sales opportunities during, and post transformation, with the expansion of our sustainability, e-commerce, and automation offerings at the forefront; and
• Shift the mindset of market capitalization by driving innovation and pushing boundaries beyond our current markets served to meet new customer segments and expand our solution offerings into existing segments.

Key Competencies for Success:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing or related field; MBA preferred but not required       10+ years in a commercial role with a large, global, manufacturing environment; Strong understanding of the packaging and materials industry, including market trends, regulations, and customer preferences preferred.
• Minimum of 10-years’ experience in B2B selling of a manufacturing company; Selling premium / value-based products
• Versatility across sales and marketing
• Proven success in commercial strategy creation and execution at scale.  Customer and relationship management experience and expertise
• Ability to motivate and lead employees and drive accountability.
• Financial acumen (budget management/financial monitoring) and demonstrated ability to develop and achieve financial plans.
• Rigor in sales process, systems, KPI management and setting monitoring mechanisms; experience with Salesforce and PowerBl highly preferred.  Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• Cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management.
• Lead from the customer POV; strong Customer Experience strategic leader.
• Experience in transforming a sales organization to one that was more value added focused