The Company
New Directions Aromatics Inc. (“NDA”) is a leading wholesale supplier of essential oils, natural raw materials and specialty packaging to the health, wellness, beauty, and personal care end-markets. Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, the company sources directly from more than 185 ethical producers from 35 countries on six continents to service 55,000 customers worldwide. NDA carries over nine hundred products across +6,500 SKUs, including more than 250 varieties of essential oils, 100 carrier oils, and 90 fragrant oils.
The Role
In January 2022, the private equity firm TruArc Partners made an investment in NDA, with the charter to grow the business to $200m in revenue through the development of value-add capabilities, people, and technology. Since the acquisition, NDA has made significant steps towards transforming the business from a former family-owned entity to a professionally managed organization, including hiring a new CEO. The CEO is now building out NDA’s leadership team and is seeking to hire a new VP of Sales to drive the Company’s transformation from a reactive organization with no external lead generation to a best-in-class sales function. The new VP of Sales will be responsible for developing and driving high-performance Direct Sales, Inside Sales and Customer Service teams characterized by superior results that consistently outpace category and peer performance.
Experience & Requirements
• Minimum of 15+ years of natural ingredients and raw materials, or other directly applicable B2B sales experience calling on major branded enterprise-class customers, distributors, manufacturers, operators, and contract manufacturers (CMOs).
• Experience with natural or organic ingredients and raw materials to the cosmetics, health and beauty, and personal care industries is an advantage.
• Experience in larger ‘blue-chip’ company as well as smaller settings; experience and understanding of smaller company growth opportunities and expectations.
• Solid business and financial acumen including business analytics skills, and agility with customer P&Ls.
• Experience and sophistication in solution and fact-based selling methods based on marketplace and customer insights; as well as selling brands and quality-driven propositions. Proven ability to sell to multiple buying influences.
• Experience and demonstrated history building high-performing Direct Sales, Inside Sales and Customer Service teams including attracting, selecting, performance-managing and professionally developing talent.
• Optimistic. Able to cope with setbacks and unexpected challenges with energy.
• “Low ego” personality / collaborator. Able to create successful relationships with varying personalities and functions.
• Polished executive presence and communication skills, including written, verbal and presentation skills; comfortable and credible with executive audiences.
• Strong collaborator across multiple functions with ability to understand context, listen to needs and partner to build creative solutions.
• A flexible, dynamic, self-demanding and proactive individual; able to motivate him/herself and others; able to work in a fast-paced, private-equity sponsored environment.
