Strategic Market Development Manager

INTERNATIONAL RECRUITMENT & HR EXPERTS ACROSS THE PLASTICS, PACKAGING, SPECIALITY CHEMICALS, LIFE SCIENCES, BIOPOLYMER, FOOD ADDITIVES & INGREDIENTS, ENERGY AND RECYCLING SECTORS SINCE 1975.

Based in Shanghai

The Client:

A global leader in additive and surface modification technologies, enhancing consumer, textile, industrial, and medical products across the globe.

Job Summary:

The Strategic Market Development Manager is responsible for driving the expansion of the company into adjacent and new markets and segments, including expanding customer bases, and developing and executing sales strategies in those markets and segments. This role focuses on uncovering growth opportunities, building strategic partnerships, and executing go-to-market strategies to establish a strong presence in emerging or underserved markets. This role blends strategic market planning with hands-on sales activities to achieve penetration into new markets.

Key Responsibilities:

• Explore and test adjacent and new markets, industry sectors, geographic areas, or customer demographics for growth opportunities. Track developing or untapped markets and assess prospects for entry and expansion. Differentiate between customers and markets that can be served with existing technologies and those which require innovation.
• Conduct customer needs analysis, and feasibility studies to assess the viability and potential of existing and new product concepts in new and adjacent markets. Integrate market insights into portfolio strategy to enhance competitiveness.
• Collaborate with internal teams to develop market entry strategies, including segmentation and positioning. Develop perspectives on attractiveness and priorities, create early-stage business cases to support.
• Develop and execute sales strategies tailored to the needs of each market segment. This includes conducting thorough market research, engaging with customers to identifying customer pain points and preferences, adapting product or service offerings, and developing targeted marketing campaigns.
• Develop an ideal partner profile and prospect potential key partners for each of the adjacent or new market segment.
• Deliver measurable pipeline of opportunities and ensure smooth transition to commercialization and management by commercial team
• Build and nurture relationships with key stakeholders, including distributors, partners, and industry influencers.
• Collaborate with sales to engage and close new customers in adjacent or new market segments. Foster strong partnerships with sales representatives to drive consistent growth and successful market penetration.
• Work closely with internal teams to design campaigns that drive awareness and adoption in new markets.
• Monitor the performance of market development initiatives using KPIs.

Qualification and Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business Administration, or a related field (MBA preferred).
• 5+ years of experience in market development, business development, product management or related roles.
• Brings extensive industry and product knowledge within the engineering plastics sector.
• Proven track record of successfully identifying new business opportunities, growing new markets, and fostering relationships with key customers and partners.
• Track record of building strategies and implementing over multi-year time horizons to deliver business results.
• Strong analytical and strategic planning skills.
• Data-driven decision-making and KPI tracking.
• Leading by influence, self-starter, comfortable in ambiguity.
• Ability to collaborate with sales, marketing, regulatory and product teams.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and negotiation skills.
• Excellent command of English is required; proficiency in Japanese would be highly beneficial.

For reasons of better legibility, the simultaneous use of the language forms male, female and diverse (f/m/d) is avoided. All personal designations apply equally to all genders.
For EU roles, candidates must be eligible to work and live in the European Union. Proof of eligibility will be required with your application

Throughout 2025, you can meet with Listgrove at the following exhibitions:
Packaging Innovations, JEC World, European Coatings Show, Kunststoffenbeurs, K2025

Meet us at Plastics Live Ireland in Dublin, 26-27 November, Stand B7