Location: ShanghaiRole and purpose:The Head of Market Development and Distribution Management is reporting to our APAC Sales VP, and will be mainly responsible for: Driving sales excellence initiatives for APAC region that lead to increased new customer acquisition in achieving profitable sales growth. Leading and developing market segmentation of target customers including reporting structure. Being the functional sales leader for APAC distribution management. Collaborating with country sales leaders, regional business management and cross-regional teams to achieve target objectives. Building customer relationships and identify short and mid-term customer needs and channel back into business management team to provide input and guidance for innovation strategy. Market development: Develop commercial excellence and market development strategy/roadmap to drive short-mid-term growth. Define target segment and customers and prioritize customer growth opportunities. Work with Business Management team closely to ensure customer and market segmentation in line with product line strategy such as market/customer value propositions (products/pricing). Oversees implementation and monitoring of effectiveness initiatives such as customer segmentation and customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Lead to implement market development strategy of target customers. Manage consolidated commercial and technical projects and support market development managers to act as communication channel with country sales team and business management team to align between market development strategy and product strategy. Manage customer ABC segmentation to achieve max. efficiency in customer service level. Develop and grow customer relationships and identify key decision makers with regards to market development opportunities. Manage key industry knowledge and identify future industry and application trends. Bridge new business opportunities with innovation requirements collaborating with business management team. Distribution management: Develop distribution strategy/roadmap together with country sales leaders and business management to ensure its effective implementation. Define and implement business action plans and pricing mechanism for distribution to optimize sales volume and profitability of distribution business in accordance with business segment roadmaps. Be accountable for the delivery of annual financial targets for distributor management and will also drive distribution business with strategic distributors to support business growth. Establish and implement distribution management policy with the objectives to synchronize distribution selections, contracts, communication channels and reports, payment terms and distribution performance measurement reporting. Optimize and simplify existing Distribution channels, i.e., Distributors, Traders and Service Providers together with country sales leaders. Ensure distribution agreements are adhered, renewed and signed on a timely basis. Ensure sales contracts and Business Partner Due Diligence is implemented. Manage relationship with key distributors and establish long-term strategic partnership.

What do you need to succeed:Level of education & Knowledge: Graduate level university degree with technical or business reference required. Additional MBA or profound business understanding and/or chemical knowhow (polymer knowledge beneficial) is preferable. Fluent English in speaking and writing. Other multi-language skill preferred. Experience: 10+ years working experience in chemical industry related to marketing and sales, particularly technical experience preferred. Experienced in sales or business within matrix organisation, with several interdependencies between businesses and regions. In-depth knowledge of global polymers/styrenics market, with specific insights in target industries, value chain and key customer trends, competitor landscape. Understand cross-functional and cross-regional framework to derive target optimal conclusions and recommendations in terms of organization awareness. Technical skills: Functional expertise with regards to account management, new business development and innovation strategy. Broad expertise of technical knowledge in styrenics products and customer process. Competent to understand constantly changing complex market environments. Derive objective oriented conclusions and entrepreneurial decision making. high level of performance and willingness to learn Conflict resolution and negotiation