Senior Commercial Relationship Lead

Innovative Service Group
£85-90,000 plus bonus & package.

This is an outstanding, opportunity to join one of the country’s most innovative business services groups.

For 2 decades, they have led their unique market place, delivering an unparalleled and invaluable service whilst working with their corporate clients on a path of continuous improvement. 

Differentiating themselves by remaining totally independent and providing bespoke solutions through numerous highly qualified and focussed teams to provide swift solutions and resolutions, whilst creating maximum value for their client & consumer basesunderpinned by highly principled humility and passion for what they do.

Replicating that human-focus internally, they have created an upbeat, friendly, innovative, and fast-paced environment with, crucially, market-leading opportunity for advancement. But they seek to continue the development of that culture and environment for the personal and professional benefit of all employees.

This is an energised and innovative culture, which every employee works diligently to foster and continually improve. They are an opportunistic growth company that seeks to deliver long-term prosperity to all employees. Career opportunities are as unlimited as any employees’ aspirations and hunger.

Their innovative service has won them huge recognition and an enviable client list within highly regulated environments as well as huge respect amongst the consumer base but all with an underlying reputation for objectivity.  Two decades of achievements and award wins set this ground-breaking business apart from their competitors, and with continued demand for their services and increased capability in their product and service portfolio, their future is as impressive as their history.

A critical element to continuing and increasing the growth and success, is the recruitment of a highly professional Senior Commercial Relationship Lead; a motivated communicator and experienced B2B service orientated leader, bringing together class-leading external and internal engagement, along with team leadership qualities all with a truly ‘people-centric’ attitude to secure a bright and profitable future for the organisation as a whole, as well as themselves.

The opportunity has arisen following the promotion of the current post-holder (whom I placed there 18 months ago), she has been promoted to a Divisional MD role in another group company.

This appointee will take an influential role in strategic leadership of the B2B relationship team, the development plans, responsible for leading and driving the B2B operations and ultimately the customer engagement (”Key Account”) functions, to deliver the strategy & plan through their people. They will be supported by and work closely with a highly capable SLT and in particular the highly regarded MD. 

They will be responsible for and take an active part in all operational functions and performance metrics as would be expected for a business of this nature, as well as taking responsibility for internal and external communication, liaison with the highly trained operational teams, numbering over 300 people.  

Leading the team responsible for the B2B Customer relationships will be at the centre of this role. Strong, well developed rigorous processes and procedures exist to ensure optimum customer engagement, communication and service, but these processes are without question ripe for (continued) development and evolution, especially as the business continues to develop and grow.

Working with other members of the leadership team, the appointee will lead, train, coach and develop staff to raise capability, creativity, performance and confidence across the team, and the business. 

All Relationship Managers are responsible for establishing beneficial strategic and operational partnerships with member companies and key stakeholders. They are also responsible for the delivery of the relationship strategy. 

The team of 5 Relationship Managers will be your direct reports, covering around 100 key accounts, are often required to bring problems raised by these client companies back into the business for resolution. This requires a strong collegiate team focus, collaborative working and the use of influencing skills both internally and externally. 

Using data and actionable insights, they support data and analysis from member companies into valuable insights, sharing a joint objective to improve commercial performance, efficiencies and to help retain customer loyalty. They position themselves as a trusted critical friend and partner

As the team’s leader, you will be expected to set the tone of engagement, working practices, disciplines and routines, to lead by example, share your experience, approach and learnings and to help guide team members when they approach you for advice and support. Each team member has a learning and development plan, which you will be expected to set, review, monitor and implement. You will be instrumental in setting & driving the motivation and inspiration for the team. You will assist in problem solving and play both a leading and supporting role at customer calls/meetings. You will lead the team to become a trusted friend to member businesses. 

They are lucky to have several technical and knowledge champions inhouse so the team work with a range of tools and with teams from across the business. You must be able to demonstrate collaborative skills as well as technical capability; able to plan effectively and organise your time to prioritise workflow and deadlines. 

The modern office environment, recently enhanced with a £multi-million refurbishment, flexible working structure, multiple subsidised & free sustenance options and break out areas are conducive to getting to know colleagues across departments, with opportunities to get involved in social, wellbeing, learning and personal development activities. This is a business with a social conscience and a hugely ethical stance that makes it one of the nicest working environments I have ever comes across. Furthermore, in any given quarter there will be digital learning modules to complete, enabling you to take ownership of your own career and learning development as well as, crucially, leading that of your team. 

Key Responsibilities

• Responsible for the team that nurtures relationships large, assigned accounts / key stakeholders and member companies to generate trusted relationships at a variety of levels. Key accounts make up to 90% of overall business revenue so are important to the success of the business.
• Owning the customer experience for business members which is measured using B2B surveys to generate NPS and CSat scores.
• Proactively supports the team to lead on a joint account planning process that develops mutual, measurable, objectives and critical milestones.
• Conduct regular 121 sessions with team members and agree a program of personal development for each of them.
• Assumes responsibility and accountability at a senior level. Able to influence.
• Meets and exceeds performance metrics. Demonstrates value add.
• Prepare reports on account status as and when required and escalate necessary issues to the relevant internal stakeholders.
• Evaluate strategic and partnership opportunities, performing a broad range of quantitative and qualitative analyses.
• Proactive contract management.
• Follows processes and procedures effectively in a framework of quality assurance measures.
• Identifies risk and compliance issues.
• Oversees and contributes to events and materials produced/ communications for participating companies e.g. newsletters, web pages, publications.
• Works with stakeholders internally where a short fall in our own service is identified.
• Maintain a strong working knowledge of customer products and services, news stories and personnel.
• Understand the competitive landscape of each sector & our competitors.

Candidate profile and chemistry fit is critical for this pivotal role. Working within a fast-paced, innovative, entrepreneurial environment, attitude is as important as experience. The person is everything. The Commercial Relationship Leader will be instrumental in setting the tone, energy and culture for the B2B business.….and in turn design its success. The gravity of success is all about having the right attitude, underpinned with demonstrable experience.

Suitable candidates will already be high achieving, experienced B2B Commercial Leaders with a track record of personal success AND success in leading teams. They will possess a strong ethos in supreme service delivery, customer engagement and a background in creating and managing a culture of success. They will ideally have come from either the Energy sector, or another regulated sector, but more importantly will have the ability to excel in such an environment.

Team Leadership Qualifications
The appointee should be people, results and delivery oriented; hands-on and possess the ability to create a sense of mission and attentiveness to current and future requirements and challenges.

They should embrace, and be able to demonstrate the organisation’s Core Values:

• Courage
• Balance
• Empathy
• Openness

Specifics include:

• Leadership experience in a senior customer focused / B2B customer engagement role
• Demonstrable people focused approach to your leadership
• Strong commercial market exposure with commitment to commercial delivery and customer satisfaction
• Commercial mind-set, comfort with ambiguity and love of change and opportunity. Strong ability to manage risk and balance opportunity
• Have experience of working with and optimising CRM database, to grow and maintain intellectual property of the business
• Strong communication, listening and interpersonal skills
• Ability to effectively lead, motivate and inspire teams
• Understand the complexities of such an organisation & its customer

Knowledge/Experience:

• Demonstrable experience of Team Leadership and Key Account Management
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to build client relationships both internally and externally
• Strong knowledge of people management, financial responsibility, negotiations and business decision making
• Strong negotiator/ strategic thinker
• Naturally works in a collaborative way
• Consultative and customer focused
• Able to problem solve and escalate issues for resolution

Skills/Competencies:

• Respected, influential, has integrity, able to work under pressure and to tight deadlines
• Superior written and oral communication skills
• Demonstrable ability to influence others across a hierarchy of levels
• Creative problem solving & strong analytical skills
• Excellent attention to detail
• Effective decision maker
• Ability to deliver complex presentations & reports
• Familiar with suite of Microsoft office tools
• Understands importance of compliance to regulatory requirements

Personal Qualifications

• Customer focused
• Honesty & integrity
• Reliability
• Adaptability
• Confident approach
• Decisive and collaborative
• Motivated
• Courageous
• Able to use initiative

The appointee will constantly strive for excellence and demonstrate personal drive and resilience, with a mature and experienced approach to both growth, and set-backs. They will be obviously self-motivated & able to work on own initiative whilst putting team and company needs before own and possess the ability to think flexibly and laterally.

They will be a model team player, as both leader and member, working with, and where necessary, challenging the others for the common good and future performance of the group. Crucially, they will have flexibility and a capacity to adapt to the changing demands of the job.

The successful candidate will have entrepreneurial ability and desire, and be hugely excited by a very high paced environment, thick with USPs – their operational leadership strength will be underpinned by a real “Just Do It” attitude, and a sense of humour.

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