Director, Global Government Sales, Europe

ROLE DESCRIPTION SUMMARY

As part of this commercial management function, you are responsible for leading a team and executing on strategic and commercial development sales goals for global government customers in Europe and selected territories while delivering on assigned sales revenue and backlog targets. You will aspire to exceed the annual revenue and total contract value (TCV) target for your region while managing an operating budget and building and sustaining a world class government sales team. You define the team’s strategic and commercial aspirations or direct and indirect leads through system integrators and will identify related future satellite and capability development requirements for a unique customer set with defence, security, diplomatic, humanitarian as well as institutional connectivity and end-to-end solutions needs. You and your team will also support identifying and working out elements of strategic space initiatives developed within and with the European Global Government team.

The vision of SES Space & Defence is to deliver robust network solutions to customers in Government. In this position, you will assess, define and integrate differentiated customer approaches into commercial go-to-market resources at infrastructure and service solutions level and will be responsible for the generation of profitable long-term top-line revenues of your team, increase SES’s market share for Global Government markets in Europe both directly with government agencies as well as with industry and service solutions partners, and be an active contributor to SES’s Doubling-Down on Government (DDoG) initiatives for your team’s zones of activities.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

• In line with SES’s overall and DDoG strategy, define, lead and execute the Global Government sales plan in Europe to achieve its objectives and to promote revenue, profitability and accretive growth via direct and indirect customer and end-user sales
• Design and develop differentiated regional/national go-to-market-strategies, taking into account specific requirements and market dynamics of the various European Nations, the European Commission and NATO as well as their agencies. Lead related business planning efforts and track general planning & execution processes
• Undertake, overview and lead the commercial sales activities associated with the European Global Government portfolio of business in effort to achieve annual revenue and cost budgets
• Identify, acquire and leverage national and international public and/or private funding in order to facilitate complex project businesses
• Lead team efforts of identifying commercial leads and public procurement processes, elaborating client proposals, negotiating offers, executing sales and managing relationships with existing and potential customers, from lobbying to lead generation to fulfilment processes

• Lead identification of key areas of demand and creation of prioritised relevant channel partners and relationships with strategic partners, industry solution providers as well as government officials
• Live and breathe the SES Leadership Model of inspiring trust, creating vision, executing strategy and coaching potential

• Active actor in overall SES change, integration and optimisation efforts

COMPETENCIES

• Understands customer (COM- and especially MIL-) SATCOM needs and demands, capable of identifying and designing solutions to later present and commercialise such to foreign governments, administrations, system integrators together with other SES staff
• Capable of effectively leading people and teams, including cross-departmental and cross-entity bid teams
• Demonstrates an understanding of the business of customers and end-users
• Very forward and driven sales hunter with highly developed negotiation skills also for complex deals, with the ability to effectively design, engineer and make commercial offers, lead negotiations, drive his/her own and the team sales process by personal engagement and in final be responsible for closing related contracts, deals and transactions
• Highly developed interpersonal and networking skills, with an ability to establish any kind of high-level business contacts in governmental and defence sector
• Excellent communication skills and demonstrated experience in delivering effective sales presentations
• Excellent commercial judgment and the ability to operate within a sometimes high pressure environment, or within short timeframes

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Minimum 15 years’ experience selling/using complex satellite and/or telecommunications services in the aerospace and defence industry and highly knowledgeable in the functioning of Government, defence and institutional organizations, with a demonstrated clear track record for numerical results over the past few years
• Demonstrated track record in the following:
  • developing, and managing, complex solutions using fixed and mobile satellite systems, mobile, tactical networks and technical services in sensitive or high-security environments
  • government and institutional market development with current portfolio of customers and end-user relationships
  • developing strategies around new and adjacent markets through direct, and indirect, channel strategies
• Demonstrates sound knowledge and detailed understanding of the following:
  • governmental budget cycles and public procurement rules and techniques
  • governmental lobbying and advisory methods with high-level contacts into various European Governments and Alliance organisations
• Long-term experience managing geographically dispersed capture, sales, marketing and business development teams, with verifiable success and quota achievements

OTHER KEY REQUIREMENTS

• Fluency in English; knowledge of other languages (preferably German and/or French) considered as an additional asset
• Willingness and ability to travel approximately 25% of the time, including internationally
• NATO, EU and respective Nation Security clearance