Business Development Manager – Cell OEM

We are seeking a Business Development Manager – Cell OEM, to join the team at Redwood. In this position, you will be responsible for sourcing lithium-ion battery material from battery cell manufacturing companies in North America.  This role is vital to our overall mission and is a key driving force to meeting our company goals in accelerating the production of local, sustainable battery materials and ensuring that end-of-life batteries and materials are collected and processed safely. This position will include strategic account planning, account development, relationship management, and sales management. You’ll work with business and technical teams across Redwood, collaborating to solve business problems with multiple stakeholders. The person who takes on this challenge, if successful, will be instrumental in paving the way for how this industry is shaped and the future of sourcing at Redwood.

Responsibilities will include:

• Build, foster and maintain relationships with battery cell manufacturers to coordinate multi-level partnerships for recycled battery materials. Align multiple locations and global stakeholder when necessary. 
• Manage the product qualification at customers, understanding the technical issues, and communicate with key stake holders internally and externally to manage the qualification timeline and customers’ expectations.
• Accountable for making sure the business is on track - the plant is at full utilization, with a strong customer mix, and that we’re exceeding customer expectations. Also ensuring that battery material is procured profitably, considering sourcing cost, operating costs, and logistics cost to feed the machine that is producing the most sustainable battery materials in the world.
• Recognize customers’ project/program in detail and align our resource to the right program and priorities as well as identify future growth opportunities for the lithium battery sourcing business. 
• Understand customers’ value chain and influences of each player in the value chain. Direct global resources to manage the global value chain appropriately as well as negotiate the various contracts (volume, prices, all other T&Cs) with customers.
• Be the oracle of the battery cell sourcing space and back it up with facts, analysis, industry and technology trends, and scenario planning. You’ll develop business cases and justify them. Strategically navigating an executable plan.
• Ability to travel 25% when necessary for meetings, tours etc.

Desired Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in chemistry, engineering, or business. Technical background a plus.
• 5-10 years of Sales/business/technical sales experience.
• Automotive, mining, metallurgical or lithium-ion battery industry experience is strongly preferred.
• Fluent in English for global communication to lead the account management.
• Strong leadership skills with logical communication.
• People skills to develop good relationships with customers even when the situation is very tough.
• People skills to respect others and motivate the rest of the team.   
• Experience in managing partners, i.e. JV partners, alliance partners.
• Smart, scrappy, entrepreneurial, science-loving, having a bias for action and a lot of grit.
• An ability to have fun while tackling hard problems!
• A passion for sustainability and making the world a better place!