Overview
Director of Sales US & Canada Jobs in United States at OERTZENGroup
Title: Director of Sales US & Canada
Company: OERTZENGroup
Location: United States
About the role
As Director of Sales for US & Canada, you will play a pivotal role in leading and elevating our commercial performance across the region. This position is designed for an experienced sales leader who is ready to step into a broader, highly visible regional role, with the potential to grow into a more strategic, senior commercial position.
You will initially take a very hands-on approach, acting both as regional sales director and as direct manager for sales and marketing teams in conjunction with our Latin America business. A key focus will be increasing customer-facing time, rebuilding a strong travel and key-account-visit culture post-COVID, and systematically driving new business and margin growth in a specialized, project-driven market. Your leadership will be essential in coaching and developing a young, mixed-experience team, fostering accountability and collaboration, and working closely with our global counterparts in Europe and Mexico to align go-to-market strategies, leverage best practices, and unlock the significant growth potential of the US and Canadian markets in automotive, consumer, industrial, and medical applications.
What you'll be doing
- Lead and oversee the sales organization for the US and Canada, directly managing regional sales managers and key technical/market experts while initially taking on a very hands-on "commercial manager" role to drive growth.
- Increase customer-facing time across the team by setting clear expectations, joining joint customer visits, and ensuring sales managers regularly travel to and engage with key accounts and high-potential prospects rather than relying on remote-only contact.
- Translate global and regional sales targets into actionable territory and account plans, managing the full sales cycle from lead generation and opportunity qualification through project development, pricing, and closing, with a strong focus on revenue growth and contribution margin.
- Coach and develop sales managers and account managers through regular ride-alongs, pipeline reviews, and deal strategy sessions, building a strong bench of talent and preparing future commercial managers and successors within the organization.
- Collaborate closely with the existing Sales Director for Latin America, as well as marketing, technical service, and customer service teams, to coordinate go-to-market activities, share best practices, and ensure a consistent, high-quality customer experience across the Americas.
- Work in partnership with global and regional leadership to identify and prioritize target markets and applications (automotive, consumer, industrial, medical), leverage leads and insights generated by marketing, and systematically convert strategic opportunities into sustainable, profitable business.
What we're looking for
- Proven experience as a sales leader in plastics, TPE, or closely related materials.
- Strong track record of driving new business and profitable growth, with hands-on experience managing multi-million-dollar sales portfolios, building healthy pipelines, and consistently meeting or exceeding revenue and margin targets.
- Demonstrated ability to lead by example in the field, including willingness to travel up to ~50% of the time.
- Expertise in managing and developing distributed sales teams, including setting clear goals, monitoring performance, providing structured feedback, and building a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
- Experience selling technically driven products in complex value chains (e.g., OEMs, Tier 1/Tier 2 suppliers, molders), with the ability to understand applications, communicate value beyond price, and work closely with technical experts and marketing.
- Background in change management within a sales organization, with the mindset and resilience to shift behaviors from remote, reactive selling toward proactive, customer-facing activity and more strategic, market-driven business development.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, capable of engaging senior stakeholders, long-tenured employees, and international colleagues, and of navigating cross-cultural collaboration with European headquarters and Latin American counterparts.
