Sales Executive New Bern, NC and GCF Franklin, VA

Sales Executive

Buckman – New Bern, NC and GCF Franklin, VA

Location: New Bern, NC and GCF Franklin, VA

Language: English

Travel: up to 40%

Buckman is a privately held, global specialty chemical company with headquarters in Memphis, TN, USA, committed to safeguarding the environment, maintaining safety in the workplace, and promoting sustainable development. Buckman delivers exceptional service and innovative solutions to our customers globally in the pulp and paper, leather, and water treatment sectors to help boost productivity, reduce risk, improve product quality, and provide a measurable return on investment. 

Position Summary

The purpose of this role is to drive profitable growth, ensuring customer retention, and strengthening relationships within assigned accounts. This role maintains sales with existing customers and identifies new opportunities while ensuring operational and financial performance aligns with company objectives. It serves as the primary point of contact for strategic guidance and account growth.

Key Outcomes/Responsibilities

Outcome: Revenue Growth & Account Expansion
Actions:

• Drive year-over-year revenue growth through cross-selling and upselling.
• Handler orders and other requirements by communicating effectively with customers or distributors.
• Identify and commercialize new applications within existing and new customers.
• Prevent attrition and actively maintain relationships to support long-term retention.
• Report sales forecasts using Connected Planning (Ackumen) and manage opportunities in Dynamics.
• Monitor and manage pipeline health, including tracking the number and size of opportunities, conversion rates, and time spent at each stage.
• Drive acquisition of new applications by identifying and securing wins.
• Increase share of wallet across accounts within the region through strategic account development and relationship management.

Outcome: Profitability Optimization

Actions:

• Optimize product mix aligned with customer needs and profitability goals together with technical and functional teams.
• Identify profitability improvement opportunities.
• Execute timely and strategic price adjustments as required by operating company pricing plan.
• Coordinate with other functional teams to substitute or rationalize products to improve cost-efficiency and profitability.

Outcome: Account Retention and Relationship Management

Actions:

• Develop and maintain relationships with key decision makers to enable account penetration.
• Maintain retention rate across assigned accounts, proactively addressing potential attrition risks.
• Conduct regular strategic reviews with key stakeholders to ensure alignment and satisfaction.
• Lead business reviews with customers to assess value delivered and identify opportunities to ensure alignment and satisfaction.

Outcome: Strategic Account Ownership
Actions:

• Implement the 8 Business Management Standards (8BMSs) where applicable
• Act as the key point of contact for customer accounts.
• Build multi-level relationships across customer functions (operations, purchasing, etc.).
• Resolve issues promptly and proactively manage account satisfaction.

Outcome: Financial & Operational Accountability (P&L, MPC, AR)
Actions:

• Meet or exceed sales, GP, and MPC budgets for the assigned area.
• Suggest and manage customer credit limits and oversee receivables.
• Ensure overdue receivables is below the target defined by OpCo management year over year and are resolved as planned.
• Manage costs in line with account profitability and resource allocation plans.
• Support inventory turnover by promoting and selling aged inventory through targeted customer outreach and strategic sales efforts.
• Ensure alignment with contractual obligations.

Outcome: Internal Collaboration
Actions:

• Partner with customer service, planning, lab, R&D, and supply chain to align on goals.
• Collaborate with field service teams to ensure high service standards without owning daily execution where applicable.
• Align internally to support commercial strategies and customer needs.
• Implement and adopt Digital enabling tools (Ackumen and Dynamics)

Outcome: Application Reliability & Service Oversight
Actions:

• Monitor application results and conduct tests for optimal performance.
• Troubleshoot and resolve process issues quickly.
• Write and maintain accurate service reports.
• Maintain and manage customer equipment to ensure uptime and reliability.

Outcome: Safety & Risk Mitigation

Actions:

• Adhere to Buckman and customer safety policies, including HCAS and stewardship standards.
• Complete Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) to encourage a culture of safety awareness and accountability.
• Promote and facilitate Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) programs to encourage a culture of safety awareness and accountability.
• Conduct Job Safety Analysis (JSA) to proactively identify and mitigate workplace hazards.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree (BA/BS) from four-year college or university or equivalent industrial experience
• Pulp & Paper, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, or Biology Degree preferred
• 5 years related experience and/or training in pulp, paper, and water treatment
• Specific training in pulp/paper science or packaging desired
• Knowledge of Industrial Processes related to the segment
• Experience in Sales or application of chemical products in industry

Competencies

• Drives Engagement - Creating a climate where people are motivated to do their best to help the organization achieve its objectives 
• Plans and Aligns - Planning and prioritizing work to meet commitments aligned with organizational goals 
• Collaborates - Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives 
• Customer Focus - Building strong customer relationships and delivering customer-centric solutions 
• Nimble Learning - Actively learning through experimentation when tackling new problems, using both successes and failures as learning fodder 

We appreciate the interest of recruitment partners, but we are not engaging external agencies for this role.

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