Business Development Director
Business Development Director, Europe
Location: Flexible across Europe (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain)
We are seeking an experienced channel and commercial leader to drive channel growth, aftermarket performance, and strategic business development initiatives across Europe.
This is a high-impact leadership role with responsibility for growing established revenue streams, developing and optimising partner networks, identifying new market opportunities, and influencing commercial success across multiple European markets.
We're looking for candidates with a proven track record of delivering growth through distributors, channel partners, OEMs, and indirect sales channels. You'll bring strong experience in channel development, partner management, and distributor performance improvement.
To succeed in this role, you'll have experience leading managers and geographically dispersed teams, operating across complex international environments, and driving results through influence, collaboration, and strong commercial leadership.
With direct responsibility for revenues of approximately 25M-30M and indirect influence over a further 60M through channel partners and distributors, this role offers significant visibility and strategic influence within the business.
What You'll Be Doing
Lead Channel Strategy & Performance
The primary focus of this role is driving channel growth across Europe. You will:
- Develop and execute European channel strategy
- Drive distributor and partner performance
- Evaluate and optimise channel coverage and effectiveness
- Identify new routes-to-market and growth opportunities
- Build strategic partnerships, OEM relationships and indirect sales channels
- Ensure strong channel governance and commercial compliance
- Support the introduction of new products and solutions into the market
Drive Commercial GrowthYou will take ownership of revenue-generating business units, including:
- Aftermarket and spare parts business
- Non-retail customer segments
- Strategic growth initiatives
- Business development programs across Europe
Lead Cross-Functional InitiativesThis role is often the focal point for key business initiatives. You will:
- Bring together teams across sales, marketing, operations and commercial functions
- Drive execution of strategic projects
- Remove barriers to growth
- Lead complex commercial initiatives that require collaboration across multiple stakeholders and countries
What We're Looking ForWe are specifically seeking candidates with
significant experience in channel development, partner management, distributor performance, and indirect commercial growth. Experience managing managers and leading geographically dispersed teams is required.
Location: Flexible across Europe (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain)
Essential ExperienceWe are interested in candidates who can demonstrate:
- Significant experience leading channel, distributor or partner networks across multiple countries
- Success growing channel performance and delivering commercial growth
- Experience developing and implementing channel strategies
- Leadership responsibility for managers and senior commercial teams
- Ownership of meaningful revenue targets and commercial performance
- Experience introducing new products, services, channels or go-to-market approaches
- Strong stakeholder management across regional and cross-functional environments
- Experience working within complex international organisations
Commercial & Contract ExperienceThe successful candidate will bring experience in:
- Commercial contract negotiations
- Distributor and partner agreements
- Contract execution and governance
- Managing channel compliance issues
- Partner relationship management
- Commercial decision-making and risk assessment
The Leadership ProfileThis role requires more than traditional sales management. We're
looking for a strategic commercial leader who:
- Thinks beyond short-term revenue targets
- Can influence without direct authority
- Is comfortable managing managers
- Can travel and operate effectively across multiple European markets
- Has the credibility to engage with senior stakeholders
- Can balance strategic planning with commercial execution
- Enjoys solving complex business challenges and driving change
LanguagesEnglish is essential, additional European languages are desirable.
Why Join? This is an opportunity to take ownership of a highly visible European leadership role with responsibility for:
- Significant commercial scope
- Strategic channel development
- Market expansion initiatives
- Leadership of established teams
- Influencing growth across a large European territory