Sales Manager

**Position description**:
Responsible for sales, market development and customer relations management within the Abrasive market.

**Main responsibilities**:

- Accountable for the commercial success of Abrasive business in the area of competence
- Ensure compliance with Ahlstrom Group and Building Materials Division sales strategies, policies and guidelines
- Provide customer and market insight and build growth strategy and implementation plans
- Execute regional sales strategy
- Continuously seek new growth opportunities within Abrasive business
- Ensure consistent achievement of key performance indicators (measured through growth, profit, revenue, margin, efficiency KPIs)
- Manage technical issues and opportunities with customers, by acting as contact point between customers and internal technical customer service/product development and operations
- Cooperate to establish annual sales targets and to build the sales budget
- Work closely with own logistics and technical / development teams and those of the customers to ensure a profitable business development
- Be knowledgeable in customers' activities in terms of payment, ability to pay on time and credit history
- Manage receivables, past due amounts and finished good stock
- Monitor sales volumes and profitability performance against plan
- Report sales volumes and sales activities on a monthly basis
- Ensure that proper sales processes and procedures are followed, including terms and conditions, Customer Contact system, consignment programs, exclusivity arrangements, and warehouse programs
- Work with business unit to ensure Ahlstrom is properly represented at trade shows and industry organizations

**Profile and qualifications**:

- University Bachelor/Master degree in paper/chemical engineering or equivalent is preferred requirement.
- As alternative, University Bachelor/Master degree in marketing or economics, if combined with meaningful technical sales or technical customer service experience
- Minimum 4 years of sales, product or business management experience with strong technical insight, preferably within Abrasive business
- Excellent interpersonal and negotiation skills
- Excellent communication and presentation skills
- Technical approach and problem solving skills
- Good leadership skills
- Able to develop close networking relationships at all level of organization, in different languages and cultures
- Excellent organizational skills
- End-to-end process understanding
- Strong drive for delivering results
- Languages: Fluent English and a second language, preferably German. French is definitively plus.
- Availability for travelling extensively - more than 50% of the time

Location: France -preferably Grand Est-, DACH

Ahlstrom is a global leader in fiber-based specialty materials. Join our journey to create a more sustainable world with products and solutions that Purify and Protect, with Every Fiber, for a Sustainable World. We serve five growing and distinctive end markets, which form the basis for our five divisions: Filtration, Food & Consumer Packaging, Healthcare, Building Materials, and Technical Materials.

We are deeply committed to building and maintaining safe and inclusive environment and culture, where everyone feels valued and respected. At Ahlstrom, we all have equal opportunities to belong and reach our full potential.