Vice President, Global Sales

Global sales strategy and execution

• Develop a multi-year-growth roadmap that identifies market opportunities, competitive threats, channel requirements and investment priorities.
• Translate the roadmap into clear execution plans and resource decisions.
• Serve as a member of the Cygnus leadership team, bringing customer and market insight to business planning, portfolio priorities and operating decisions.
• Present sales performance, risks and recommendations to the General Manager and senior leadership.

Customer growth and competitive positioning

• Lead Sales strategy and execution.
• Establish account segmentation, coverage and ownership, and personally engage in strategic customer discussions, competitive opportunities and major negotiations.
• Expand enterprise pharma and biotech relationships across sites, functions and development programs.
• Build senior customer relationships while ensuring strong engagement with analytical development, quality control, process development and procurement stakeholders.
• Establish a repeatable approach to new customer acquisition, including small and midsize biopharma.
• Develop CDMO relationships that create access to new programs and support early adoption of Cygnus assays and related services.
• Partner with Marketing and scientific leaders to translate Cygnus' gold-standard position into a compelling, evidence-based commercial approach.
• Equip sellers and distributors to demonstrate assay performance, reliability, technical support and total workflow value.
• Shape and implement pricing and negotiation strategies with the General Manager and Finance.
• Establish disciplined discounting and deal review practices within approved authority, balancing growth, customer value and margin.

Distribution

• Own distributor strategy, including market coverage, partner selection, development and performance.
• Recommend and implement partner additions or changes within approved authority.
• Establish joint business plans, growth targets, training and regular performance reviews.
• Improve visibility into end-customer demand, pipeline and inventory.
• Develop regional plans that reflect any local market conditions, including EMEA growth and China distributor and CDMO opportunities.
• Build strategic customer relationships alongside distributors while maintaining clear channel responsibilities.

Sales organization and execution

• Design and develop a sales organization and process suited to Cygnus' growth priorities.
• Recruit, coach and retain talent, strengthen leadership capability and build succession plans for critical roles.
• Establish clear performance expectations and work with HR and Finance to align commercial incentives with revenue growth, margin and strategic priorities.
• Lead a consistent sales operating cadence covering pipeline quality, opportunity qualification, forecasting, account performance and distributor results.
• Use CRM data and win/loss analysis to improve execution and respond to competitive threats.
• Distinguish underlying demand, volume and new business growth from pricing effects.
• Partner with Marketing on positioning, demand generation, sales tools and launches.
• Bring customer insight to R&D and Technical Services to inform opportunities for new products, custom assays and related services.
• Align customer commitments with Operations and technical teams so that capacity, service and product availability support a dependable customer experience.

The skills and experience that you will bring

• Bachelor's degree in life sciences, business or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience. An advanced scientific or business degree is preferred.
• 15+ years of progressive sales experience in life science tools, bioprocessing, analytical testing or a closely related market, including substantial leadership experience with revenue, budget and organizational accountability.
• Demonstrated success developing and executing strategies that deliver sustained growth in competitive, technically complex markets.
• A record of winning new business, expanding strategic accounts, defending premium value and leading complex negotiations with sophisticated biopharma customers.
• Experience leading both direct sales and distributors, including market prioritization, partner selection, joint planning and performance improvement.
• Experience in EMEA and Asia, particularly China, is valuable.
• Evidence of building organizations, developing leaders and aligning structure, talent, incentives and investment with business priorities.
• Strong financial and commercial judgment, including pricing, margin management, forecasting, budget ownership and resource allocation.
• Working knowledge of biologics development and manufacturing and the purchasing needs of analytical development and quality control teams.
• Experience with host cell protein assays, impurity analytics or related reagents and services is strongly preferred.
• Ability to lead change in an established technical organization and influence decisions across scientific, operational and commercial functions.
• Executive presence and communication skills to build trust with senior customers, distributors and internal leaders, combined with a willingness to remain directly involved in sales execution.
• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally to support customers, distributors and the team.