Business Development Manager North East Scotland

Annual Leave entitlement: 25 days (plus 10 bank holidays)

Working hours: Full time - permanent

Location: Aberdeen

Reporting to: Senior Market Development Manager & a dotted line to the Membership and Commercial Director

Closing date for applications: Tuesday 6th of August

Please send CV and covering letter to: Humanresources@foodanddrink.scot with the title of the job you are applying for in the subject line.

 

JOB SUMMARY

This is a key role that demands an experienced manager, used to dealing at all levels in an organisation and with multiple stakeholders. With a strong understanding of the process of successfully taking products to market, this is an experienced, entrepreneurial, and commercially minded business development manager with strong knowledge of Scotland’s food and drink landscape whose role is to:

• Achieve high visibility for SF&D within the region; both through account management of existing SF&D members, as well as engaging new businesses and creating a pipeline of prospective new SF&D members,
• Operate as the lead point of contact for all day-to-day Scotland Food & Drink matters specific to assigned accounts in the North East of Scotland geography (Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray), responsible for the flow of communications from and to the business base and SF&D/ONE.
• Work with NE businesses to connect to business and market development activities and opportunities provided by all relevant organisations including ONE, Scotland Food & Drink, and ONE Seedpod, in order to assist NE food and drink manufacturing businesses to accelerate growth.
• Provide an ongoing connection between the two organisations; working with both organisations ensures that the North East’s specific needs are understood, and that duplication of effort is avoided and partnership opportunities are maximised
• Work at both strategic and operational levels, collaboratively and flexibly with internal colleagues and external partners.

 

ABOUT THE ROLE

Business Engagement

• Account Management and engagement of SF&D member businesses within the NE territory alongside SF&D support desk, with focus on nurturing and developing identified scalable business in your region.
• Understand each member business and highlight specific opportunities as
• appropriate.
• Develop, update, and maintain a “new member/business” pipeline and agree key recruitment and engagement targets and focus with SF&D/ONE line management to deliver on organisational goals.
• Provide a conduit between the regional business base and SF&D / ONE to feedback on emerging industry issues and help shape and inform potential solutions
• Outward engagement with SF&D / ONE partners, councils, and other public sector agencies (Seafood Scotland, SE, HIE, SDI, SDS, Business Gateway etc)
• Attend networking events and represent SF&D / ONE at events, including public speaking.

 

Administration and teamworking

• Provide regular reporting against targets set by/agreed with line manager/organisation(s).
• Attendance at full organisation meetings and BDM team / ONE team meetings.
• Contribute to SF&D / ONE cross-team projects, feeding into plans, sharing knowledge and contacts, and delivering work-stream elements as appropriate.

 

ABOUT YOU

Essential

The successful candidate will:

• Be commercially minded, with knowledge and understanding of the Scottish food and drink sector and support environment with particular focus on market focused solutions
• Have a track record and experience in delivering business development in the food and drink sector.
• Demonstrate good knowledge of economic development factors impacting the food & drink sector overall and North East of Scotland specifically.
• Show good knowledge of the business support environment in Scotland and NE region.
• Have proven account management skills, including account profiling, with demonstrable track record of programme delivery.
• Be a team player, with strong people skills to develop new and existing relationships.
• Demonstrate strong interpersonal skills; clear communicator with excellent verbal, written and project management skills.
• Strong administration skills, maintaining high attention to detail.
• Willingness to travel and able to attend events out with normal working hours.
• Exhibit good organisational and time management skills; proven ability to work to a deadline.
• Full driving licence

Desirable

• Food and Drink Sector Experience
• Familiarity with Microsoft packages and an ability to learn in-house systems.
• Experience of working with a membership organisation or similar

 

*This role is based at the ONE Aberdeen office but is a field role. There will also be the requirement to attend meetings at, and work from, the SF&D office in Edinburgh from time to time.

 

WORKING AT SCOTLAND FOOD & DRINK

Scotland Food & Drink is the industry leadership organisation tasked with driving responsible growth for the sector. We are also a membership organisation with over 420 companies at our heart.

Working with us gives you an opportunity to be part of one of the most exciting and innovative industries in Scotland.

Our culture and our people are core to delivering our diverse and collaborative work. We have work/life balance as one of our core values and we have a benefits package offering a pension scheme, 35 days holiday (plus your birthday), enhanced MAT and Paternity benefits, a flexible working policy and a cycle-to-work scheme. As well as opportunities to socialise and attend industry events and dinners.

We believe working with us should be a hugely positive experience, our core values are:

Ambition – we are passionate about making a difference

Collaboration - our impact comes from harnessing the individual strengths of our people and our partners, forging a strong team spirit. We have each other’s backs

Respect – we all set the tone, taking personal responsibility for our actions, embracing empathy and generating a world class external reputation

Balance - work is important, life is everything. Success is doing both well

We are also an equal opportunity employer, and we recognise that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive.