Sales Director

We are excited to be representing a German, family owned, prestigious window and door hardware manufacturer, Winkhaus. They are looking for an experienced forward-thinking Sales Director to lead and drive sales performance across all market areas, ensuring a culture of accountability, innovation, customer-centricity, and growth. You will bring strategic thinking, operational sales discipline, and commercial leadership to an established sales team. This role requires a hands-on leader who combines data-driven insight with people management excellence, capable of setting long-term direction while delivering short-term results. As Sales Director you will lead and drive sales performance across all market areas, ensuring a culture of accountability, innovation, customer-centricity, and growth. You will bring strategic thinking, operational sales discipline, and commercial leadership to an established sales team. This role requires a hands-on leader who combines data-driven insight with people management excellence, capable of setting long-term direction while delivering short-term results. Key Responsibilities: * Lead and inspire a multi-generational national sales team, fostering a performance culture with clear KPIs and development plans. * Build and maintain strategic relationships with key customer partners, acting as a senior point of contact and trusted advisor. * Collaborate closely with the CX Manager to enhance the customer journey, ensuring a strong service experience. * Work cross-functionally to ensure that service excellence and commercial relevance are core to our customer proposition. * Collaborate with the Managing Director, Business Analytics, Product, Marketing, and Technical teams to shape go-to-market plans, factoring in the impact of stock levels, lead times, and distribution processes on commercial strategy. * Establish best-in-class sales operations, including CRM usage, customer segmentation, territory planning, and reporting. * Bring strategic insight to sales data and analytics to identify trends, opportunities, and areas for improvement. * Set and manage departmental KPIs, sales targets, and individual objectives to ensure accountability at all levels. * Contribute to senior leadership thinking, offering commercial ideas and innovation beyond sales execution. * Assess and evaluate the future leadership structure of the sales function over the first 12 months, with flexibility to introduce new roles as needed. * Represent the sales function on the Executive Leadership Team, supporting wider business decision-making. Candidate Profile * 5+ years in sales leadership roles, with clear evidence of adaptability, team development, and commercial success, ideally in B2B technical distribution businesses (e.g., door hardware, fenestration, or similar sectors). * Familiarity with stock and logistics operations is beneficial but not essential. * Demonstrated experience in developing and executing sales growth strategies — ideally with measurable outcomes and examples of overcoming commercial challenges. * Proven ability to lead through change, including restructuring, cultural shifts, or introducing new systems (e.g., CRM, territory planning). * Strong data literacy and ability to use CRM and analytics tools to inform decisions, spot trends, and drive performance. * Proficiency in Microsoft Excel for forecasting, data analysis, and reporting. * Experience in key account development and building senior customer relationships that deliver long-term value. * A record of cross-functional collaboration with marketing, product, operations, and CX to shape propositions and improve service. * Comfortable leading a mature and experienced sales team, with evidence of coaching, succession planning, and team uplift. * Degree-level education or equivalent experience in business, marketing, sales, or related fields