Sales Director

I am working with a globally recognised, premium packaging business to appoint a Director of Sales to drive growth across the US market and expand its presence with major international beauty and cosmetics brands.

This is a senior individual-contributor role, suited to a commercially driven and consultative sales professional who enjoys owning the full sales cycle: opening new doors, building senior relationships, converting opportunities and growing strategic accounts. There are no direct reports; success will come through personal market engagement, account development and close collaboration with internal technical, design, project and operational teams.

The business offers an innovation-led portfolio spanning luxury cosmetic, skincare and fragrance packaging, as well as promotional items and custom beauty applicators. You will position these solutions to a prestigious customer base of global beauty brands, balancing new-business development with the expansion of existing relationships.

Key responsibilities:

• Take personal ownership of sales growth across the US, delivering against agreed revenue, margin and new-business objectives.
• Build trusted, long-term relationships with senior stakeholders across global beauty, cosmetics, skincare and fragrance brands.
• Identify, qualify and win new opportunities, managing the complete sales process from prospecting through to negotiation and commercial close.
• Develop existing accounts by identifying new projects, product categories and opportunities to grow customer spend.
• Maintain a robust and accurate sales pipeline, ensuring opportunities are qualified, progressed and forecast effectively.
• Present packaging innovations, new concepts and technical solutions to customers, supported by samples, presentations and commercial proposals.
• Manage customer meetings, project discussions and negotiations with both commercial and technical stakeholders.
• Prepare quotations, define suitable pricing and margin structures, and ensure proposals are competitive, accurate and commercially sound.
• Work closely with internal design, development, operations and project teams to translate customer requirements into successful packaging solutions.
• Keep customer, opportunity and project information up to date within the CRM and document-management systems.
• Communicate price increases professionally, using relevant raw-material, freight and wider market-cost information to support commercial discussions.
• Monitor customer activity, competitor developments and beauty-packaging trends to identify opportunities for innovation and account growth.
• Represent the business at relevant customer meetings, industry events and trade exhibitions as required.

Experience Requirred:

• Proven experience in sales, business development or key-account management within beauty, cosmetics, luxury packaging, fragrance, skincare or a related premium consumer-products environment.
• A strong record of personally winning new business and expanding strategic customer accounts.
• Experience selling to major international beauty and cosmetics brands
• Comfortable operating autonomously in a senior, customer-facing role, while collaborating effectively with international internal teams.
• Commercially astute, with confidence managing pricing, margins, quotations, forecasts and negotiations.
• Able to sell complex, design-led and technically specified products involving multiple stakeholders and longer sales cycles.
• Excellent communication, presentation and relationship-building skills, with credibility at senior customer level.
• Highly organised and proactive, with a disciplined approach to territory planning, pipeline management and CRM administration.
• Willingness to travel across the US to meet customers and develop key accounts.

Why this opportunity

This is an opportunity to have a direct, visible impact on the US growth of a respected global supplier within premium beauty packaging. You will have the autonomy to develop the market, shape high-value customer relationships and bring luxury packaging innovations to leading beauty, skincare and fragrance brands.