Vice President, General Manager - Industrial Pumps

ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES

The Vice President is a Strategic Leader for a scope of businesses in the Industrial Pump and Filtration space with volume in the range of $200-$400MM. Primary responsibility is a hands-on leader who takes ownership of driving organic growth through business development and commercial strategic initiatives. This leader will have the significant sales, business, and financial acumen to help deliver on financial budgets and commitments for this scope of businesses and technology group initiatives. Important for success, the leader must fit the company’s leadership culture which is one of servant leadership, whereas leaders we partner and support vs act like a boss or manager.

In addition to being personally responsible for organic growth, this leader will support 12+ entrepreneurs/founders of organizations acquired and brought into the family, this will require a direct & accountable, selfless, and humble leadership style. These self-starters come to the Vice President with ideas for solutions, growth opportunities, and a thought partner around how to grow their respective business and drive performance, and not to be told what to do or what targets they have to meet.

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate a strong growth mindset and be commercially driven. S/he should have a strong industry background within the industrial pumps space. You will work closely with the Group President and the Group of businesses on the roll-out and management of tools, processes, and systems to allow the leaders to be focused on customer facing activities.

The Vice President needs to work with the various brand leaders to find and secure markets and business development opportunities. You will fully examine the current pipeline and portfolio and develop strategies in combination with General Managers to drive continued growth. This should include but not be limited to new products, services, or geographical expansion. There are significant opportunities for further development of the business leveraging the company, including leverage of The company cross-selling, digital platforms including customer relationship management (CRM), people development with talent ascension. This role may also take a critical role in identifying, evaluating, and participating in the acquisition of new brands. You will also find ways to provide the utmost technical solutions to our customers and determine if there are opportunities to optimize our cost structure as we continue to add more brands and or branches.

The Industrial Pump Group Vice President will also serve as the Technology Group Leader for Pumps.

The technology groups establish a working cadence for the Pump technology participants from around the company. The Pump Technology Group (PTG) will develop a clear strategy for pump growth across all Operating groups and brands. Key initiatives will be established and managed by the PTG leader. Various experts from around the company will serve as leads for these initiatives and the working teams that are founded to drive them.

Responsibilities will include:

• Development, prioritization, and execution of a key initiative (geographic/new product growth) roadmap for each business that ensures all entities are focused on activities that drive growth.
• Regularly interact with key customers and develop deep and strategic partnerships to be able to continuously grow the business. Focus on developing new customers and/or product offerings to profitably grow the top line
• Communicate effectively inside and outside the group to drive strong teamwork and collaboration. Also, develop a strong sales team to sell based on “value and technology” and not on price.
• Actively participate in M&A and business development. Taking a key leadership role during the integration of businesses into the Industrial Pumps group.
• Drive continued commercial growth and further develop the strategy for business development and lead execution to profitably grow the business both organically, through acquisition integration, and through potential M&A.
• Lead the team in developing ways to measure operational performance and track improvements
• Develops and participates on Global Continuous Improvement programs and expectations (world class service and manufacturing expectations).
• Maintain a focus on developing engineering innovation (i.e., new products and services) to continuously pursue organic growth opportunities within the business.
• Actively manage internal talent development, helping to identify those with potential, and helping to grow the next generation of P&L and functional leaders for the company.
• Manage the financial, customer, internal business, and innovation processes and implement cost controls and budgetary oversights to ensure that profits/EBITDA and cash-flow goals are achieved.

Professional traits that are not unique to this position, but necessary for leaders are:

• Relatable with a wide-ranging appeal to disparate personalities and styles
• Collaborates well with peers and executive leadership utilizing experiences to support the development world class processes that improve the overall organization
• A team player demonstrating attributes of being hungry, humble, and smart in their approach to leadership and decision making

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Successful track record of fundamentally building a business and making it perform much better than it has previously
• Comprehensive understanding of how to manage a commercial, distribution-focused business
• Deep understanding of and experience in the industrial pumps space
• Demonstrated sales and sales leadership experience as the key element in a career path to commercial leadership
• A focus on getting things done, ideally with experience in smaller (~ $25 million) business as well as experience of being part of and leading a much larger organization.
• This experience would ideally have been gained through working with a world-class company where s/he learned best in class practices and put these into place in a business
• Experience in a solutions-focused or services-focused company environment
• Ability to drive commercial and operational synergies following the acquisition of complementary businesses, including strategic growth initiatives creating a product roadmap, managing product overlap and development
• A combination of strong business/commercial acumen and sales leadership skills
• Demonstrated success in growing sales aggressively by working closely with customers and OEMs into the market and build deep trusting relationships with them
• This does not need to have come at a distributor, but experience working with or through specialty distributors, which could include as suppliers, is helpful
• Proven ability of leading or stepping up into General Manager responsibility for a large US-focused industrial services business
• Strong personal leadership qualities with a track record of recruiting, motivating, and developing a capable team. Outstanding interpersonal skills and ability to demonstrate past examples of accomplishments.

CULTURE FIT / KEY ATTRIBUTES:

• Sense of humility and a willingness to do whatever it takes to address challenges
• Hungry, humble, and smart as well as a Player-Coach mindset; fully embraces servant leadership
• Ability to engage directly with the executive team and board as well as with functional and business teams comprising lower and mid-level colleagues
• Strong sense of accountability and communication; passion for owning projects and driving them to completion while keeping colleagues and stakeholders apprised of the progress as well as their contribution and performance
• Team player with the ability to bring others along, sell change, and build consensus effectively
• A self-starter who is comfortable in an entrepreneurial and transitioning environment
• A Doer, not a Manager, i.e. has a drive to transform a company, not run the transformation
• Strong ability to influence; track record of successful client relationship development and ability to quickly build credibility and gain the confidence of individuals at all levels, including leading by influence where teams comprise individuals who report elsewhere
• Has had exposure engaging with a company that is undergoing rapid improvements across process, policy, and operations
• Demonstrated interpersonal, collaborative, and relationship-building skills
• Demonstrated ability to recognize, prioritize, and evaluate market trends and specific growth opportunities

EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE

• Proven Sales / Commercial leadership experience with track record of significant organic growth leadership.
• 15+ years of Industrial Market experience with focus on pumps and filtration. Engineering degree or equivalent experience.