Director of Sales

Charter Manufacturing is a fourth-generation family-owned business where our will to grow drives us to do it better.  Join the team and become part of our family!

At Charter Steel, you'll join a people-focused culture where innovation, teamwork, and continuous improvement drive how we work. The Director of Sales will lead commercial strategy, profitable growth, and customer engagement while building the systems, leadership capability, and cross-functional operating discipline needed to scale the organization.

This is a builder role. The successful leader will lead through sales managers, strengthen account planning and forecasting, improve CRM and data discipline, develop talent, and connect customer commitments to operational capability, technical requirements, and long-term enterprise value. The role also partners closely with Customer Experience, Marketing, Technical Services, Operations, Quality, and leadership to turn Charter Steel capabilities into meaningful customer value and measurable business outcomes.

Work location: Onsite in either Cleveland, OH or Saukville, WI

Travel: Approximately 50%

Leadership scope: Multi-level sales organization; leads through sales managers

What You'll Do

Lead Commercial Strategy and Profitable Growth

• Own revenue, margin, mix, customer retention, and strategic-account outcomes across key market segments.

• Translate business strategy, market conditions, competitor behavior, customer economics, industry trends, and regulatory developments into clear commercial priorities and measurable plans.

• Translate product and customer segmentation models into differentiated value propositions, service models, account coverage, growth priorities, and investment levels.

• Guide strategic account planning, customer roadmaps, contracts, and engagement models that support long-term growth and customer loyalty.

Build a Scalable Sales Operating System

• Define, implement, and continuously improve the end-to-end sales process - from market prioritization and opportunity qualification through account planning, pipeline management, forecasting, negotiation, contracting, handoffs, and post-sale engagement.

• Establish clear process definitions, decision criteria, roles, management cadence, and accountability for consistent adoption across the sales organization.

• Create predictive visibility into pipeline health and commercial performance using measures such as opportunity quality, conversion, win rate, sales-cycle duration, account potential, forecast accuracy, and expected financial contribution.

• Use CRM, dashboards, analytics, and service data to improve forecast quality, territory and resource planning, customer insight, performance management, and cost-to-serve.

Lead Through Managers and Build Organizational Capability

• Establish clear roles, decision rights, performance expectations, and operating cadence so sales managers independently lead account planning, forecasting, coaching, and performance management within their teams.

• Build a disciplined coaching system that includes account and opportunity reviews, customer-call observation, skill assessment, feedback, development planning, and follow-up.

• Assess organizational capability, recruit and develop talent, strengthen leadership succession, recognize strong performance, and address performance or behavioral gaps with urgency and consistency.

• Develop managers who can coach both sales-process discipline and the capabilities required for strategic selling, negotiation, customer leadership, and commercial decision-making.

Strengthen Customer Relationships and Technical Differentiation

• Build deep, strategic, multi-level customer relationships and lead proactive engagement informed by service data, technical insights, quality performance, lab results, supply chain metrics, and market trends.

• Partner with Customer Experience, Marketing, Technical Services, Quality, Supply Chain, and Operations to deliver a seamless customer journey and position Charter Steel capabilities as differentiators.

• Partner with the Director of Technical Services to evolve the lab from a reactive resource into a proactive, customer-facing commercial asset that provides product analysis, performance insight, and strategic collaboration for key accounts.

• Create customer feedback loops and ensure insights are captured in CRM and translated into improvements in processes, product offerings, service delivery, and customer experience.

Protect Enterprise Value and Drive Disciplined Execution

• Lead complex commercial negotiations involving pricing, volume commitments, supply agreements, service expectations, risk allocation, concessions, and long-term strategic value.

• Establish negotiation strategies, approval parameters, contract-governance practices, and post-negotiation learning that improve capability and consistency across the organization.

• Balance customer advocacy with capacity, operational capability, technical risk, service requirements, profitability, and long-term enterprise value.

• Create confidence for leadership through timely communication, clear escalation, visible progress, disciplined follow-up, and continuous improvement across commercial workflows.

• Uses leading indicators to identify risk, redirect resources, and improve outcomes before gaps appear in revenue or margin results

How You'll Lead

• Builder mindset: You can scale systems and teams, create operating cadence, develop managers, and institutionalize strong commercial practices.

• Collaborative influence: You proactively partner across functions and leadership, including when ownership is shared or ambiguous.

• High accountability: You set clear expectations, use metrics and routines, follow through, and communicate progress or risk before being asked.

• Strategic and operational discipline: You translate strategy into execution through managers, measures, decision rights, and cross-functional operating mechanisms.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive commercial or sales leadership experience, ideally within steel, metals, manufacturing, or industrial B2B sectors.

• Demonstrated success leading sales teams to achieve growth and margin targets in complex, technical, or engineering-driven industries.

• Strong financial and strategic acumen with the ability to connect commercial decisions to operational, technical, and profitability impacts.

• Experience successfully implementing CRM systems, digital sales tools, or service data platforms.

• Exceptional communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.

Additional Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive commercial or sales experience, including significant experience leading sales managers and a multi-level sales organization in a complex industrial, manufacturing, technical, or engineering-driven B2B environment.

• Demonstrated success building or transforming a sales organization, including sales process, management cadence, account planning, forecasting, CRM adoption, coaching, talent development, and performance accountability.

• Proven record of delivering measurable revenue, margin, mix, customer-retention, or strategic-account outcomes through the performance of the organization.

• Experience assessing organization capability, recruiting and developing talent, addressing performance gaps, and building leadership succession.

• Demonstrated ability to balance customer advocacy with capacity, operational capability, technical risk, service requirements, profitability, and long-term enterprise value.

• Demonstrated experience leading through sales managers, including setting expectations, establishing management cadence, coaching manager effectiveness, differentiating performance, and holding leaders accountable for team outcomes.

• Demonstrated experience personally leading complex, multi-party commercial negotiations and coaching teams through high-value or high-risk customer agreements.

• Working knowledge of commercial contracts, terms and conditions, risk allocation, compliance requirements, and contract-governance practices.

We offer comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits, along with a 401(k) plan that includes employer matching and profit sharing. Additionally, we offer company-paid life insurance, disability coverage, and paid time off (PTO).