Business Development Manager Europe

at  Avantium

Our world needs solutions, and we need them fast. A growing population and increasing standards of living drive our energy and material consumption. In order to keep global warming at bay, we need to reduce our carbon footprint substantially, in fact transition towards a climate neutral economy.
Avantium’s Vision: “We believe in a fossil-free world, let’s go!”
We create disruptive technologies to facilitate the sustainability change and bring them to the world with partners to accelerate the transition towards renewable and circular business.

WHAT DO YOU BRING?

To be successful in this role, the Business Development Manager needs to be at home in the world of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). You understand their goals, their solutions, their challenges and way of working. Enthusiasm, resilience, a “can do mentality” and drive to make impact are the necessary skills to make our vision happen. You are a team player, because success can only be reached by working together with your colleagues, our partners and their value chain

We are looking for a Business Development Manager with the following background:

• Master or Bachelor degree in Business, Commercial, Marketing, Economical or broad Technical area (E.g. Industrial Engineering and Management, Energy and Environmental sciences, Product design, Economics, Marketing).
• At least 5 year of experience in working with customers in a commercial role as Business Developer or Sales / Marketing.
• Demonstrated work experience in FMGC industry (e.g., food & beverage, apparel and cosmetics segments), preferably, either directly employed or as a consultant.
• Preferred: Familiar to operate in a technology driven industry, comfortable in intellectual property discussions and legal negotiations.
• Excellent communication skills (both oral as written), PowerPoint skills, Excel skills (business case, data analysis) and LinkedIn as a sales tool
• Experience in circular concepts, recycling and branding is advantageous.
• Personal skills: Team worker, enthusiastic, critical, but can-do mentality, result-oriented, ability to work at tight deadlines.
• Languages: Company language is English. Being able to speak additional languages is desirable.
• Willingness to travel for 50% to 75% of working time.

The aim of the Business Development Manager Europe role is to grow market demand of PEF in Europe by developing partnerships with brand owners and retail chains, creating pull through the large, integrated value chains through converters to the material and feedstock suppliers. In order to reach that goal, the BDM develops brand partnerships, communication plans and business cases in cooperation with the representatives of the partners in the FMCG industry, finally resulting in PEF (and FDCA) capacity reservations from Avantium’s future licensing plants.

A key responsibility is to develop and capture market demand in Europe. This also includes:

• Developing new partnerships with brand owners in food & beverage, fiber & textile market (apparel, outdoor and sportswear, home decoration and some technical applications) and cosmetics segments that have a good match in terms of their (sustainability) strategy and Avantium’s value proposition in the licensing phase.
• Translating customer needs/requirements into attractive value proposition and develop the business case with the offtake partner together with the Technical Application Manager.
• Putting the right commercial contracts in place with regard to goal setting, milestones, timing, resources as well as the relevant legal context (such as non-disclosure, material transfer, joint development, offtake agreement, capacity reservation etc.).

Responsibilities:

• Product Branding: load the Avantium FDCA and PEF brand with the brand owners and retail partners, together building consumer preference and adoption for our customer’s products and/or brands.
• Marketing & Communication: in collaboration with the team in Amsterdam, lead the marketing and communication activities in Europe (e.g., generating visibility, exhibitions, conferences, social media). Represent Avantium at conferences with the goal of increasing the general awareness on the product, building relationships with external contacts and lead generation.
• Market insights: keep track of new market reports, collect relevant data, analyze and provide perspective regarding interest areas and relevance to assist the Director Business Development in translating market insight into strategic directions.
• Reporting: opportunity; project progress; and forecasts to the team on a bi-weekly basis.
• Follow up on incoming enquiries (e.g., Avantium website, network).

We are a small team, operating in Europe, Asia and the Americas. At times, when priorities require, you do not mind contributing or even stepping in for your peers in the other continents.