VP / GM North America

Job Description

ESKO is a growing business and worldwide market leader with software for packaging buyers, designers and manufacturers and hardware products for the packaging, label, sign and display industries. With Headquarters in Ghent - Belgium, Esko employs around 1,700 people worldwide. Its global sales and support organization covers Europe, the Americas, Northern and Southern Asia. Esko is going through multiple transitions. We recently acquired a global business, BLUE, to further strengthen our BRANDS organization.

For 9 out of 10 retail packages, Esko solutions are used in packaging management, asset management, artwork creation, structural design, prepress, 3D visualization, Flexo print plate making, workflow automation, quality assurance, sample-making, palletization, supply chain collaboration and the production of signage and displays. The Esko solutions consist of an extensive suite of software and two hardware product Lines.

The opportunity

The Vice President / General Manager North America (hereafter referred to as “VP”) will report to the Esko President. He/She will lead and inspire a staff of ~225 professionals through 7 direct reports and a number of strong dotted line reports. The VP’s peer relationships will include the three other regional VP/GM’s for Asia, EMEA, and LATAM. This position is part of the Esko leadership team, which includes the functional leaders of Finance, Marketing. Business Unit GMs, Danaher Business System, and Human Resources.

The VP will be responsible for developing and executing channel and customer strategies to purposefully grow sales, service, customer installed base and market share through allotted resources. The individual will have revenue responsibility for approximately USD $90M. In this role, he/she will lead their team to achieve sales and operating profit objectives within the scope of the business strategy; as well as provide timely, accurate sales and financial forecasting.

The professional will move quickly to build trusted relationships with customers and key account opportunities. In addition, the VP will make a personal investment in fostering internal relationships in order to secure the continual support of the organization’s global resources and to cultivate a culture based on respect, partnership, communication and results.

Critical is the VP’s ability to continue to build an extraordinary team focused on commercial excellence. This includes finding opportunities to “raise the bar” for individuals and for the team by instilling his/her value-selling vision and agenda as an integral part of the company’s goals for success. Additionally, this person will be responsible for providing vision and expertise to the sales organization wherever and whenever it is lacking. He/She will be equipped and prepared to provide deeper insight, best practices, core competencies, and skills to complement his/her direct reports.

In order to be successful in this role, you will need to:

• Achieve revenue and operating profit targets through active leadership of product sales and aftermarket revenue.
• Manage P&L and take action to remain within stated profit objectives;
• Lead Policy Deployment initiatives to achieve breakthrough results.
• Lead NA team through effective Daily Management to ensure proper prioritization and proactive problem solving.
• Create sustainable capability within the NA Commercial organization by identifying improvement opportunities and leading kaizen activities.
• Champion world-class sales management by adopting and evolving Danaher Sales Force Initiatives and Funnel Management Standard Work. Develop and elevate his/her sales organization and migrate towards value/solutions competencies.
• Maintain market and competitor intelligence and develop proactive strategies to maintain company competitiveness through field and customer visits.
• Drive the continuous deployment and improvement of process through the Danaher Business System (DBS).

Other Responsibilities

• To fulfill the critical commitments detailed above and achieve success in his/her role, the VP will:
• Drive sales programs onto industrial channels of distribution, achieving breakthrough objectives for sales and marketing;
• Target, visit and close key accounts to develop new business opportunities;
• Review and analyze monthly sales and marketing objectives, and establish countermeasures to remain on plan;
• Work with Human Resources to build incentive compensation plans for his/her sales teams that both reward/ motivate those individuals and facilitate the achievement of North America’s goals.
• Prepare presentations for internal and external sales and marketing projects;
• Participate in industry trade functions to stay on top of changes and opportunities;
• Establish sales and marketing strategies for annual strategic plan process;
• Forecast channels effectively; and
• Developing succession capability and building talent funnels is essential to ensure growth objectives for the region, Esko, the Product Identification Platform and Danaher.

Personal Characteristics

The successful candidate for the VP/GM for Esko will visibly embody each of the following traits:

• Brings high emotional intelligence to the role – working collaboratively with associates and customers;
• Consistently sets a high bar for “what good looks like” and can motivate his/her direct reports and broader team to achieve outstanding results;
• Is both process and detail oriented – is committed in execution to ensure full value is achieved from initiatives.
• Works effectively in matrixed organizations, showing the right balance between conviction of key ideas he/she wants to cultivate and sufficient flexibility to adapt to change and redirect resources effectively and appropriately;
• Excellent conceptual skills demonstrated through focused, succinct communication;
• High degree of confidence, assertiveness and mental resilience;
• Credibility through demonstrated expertise; presence and stature to generate respect, trust and a positive image for the organization;
• The highest levels of personal and professional ethics, and unquestioned integrity in each of his/her initiatives;

Education

The successful candidate’s educational background will include an undergraduate degree in Business, Finance, Marketing or a technical vocation. An advanced degree is strongly preferred.

Compensation

The company recognizes this role as a critical position within the corporation. The company will create a compelling compensation package. Based upon performance and success in role, this individual will be included in the Danaher senior leader talent funnel for consideration of future positions of increasing responsibility.

Danaher is a global science & technology innovator committed to helping our customers solve complex challenges and improve quality of life worldwide. Our world class brands are leaders in some of the most demanding and attractive industries, including life sciences, medical diagnostics, environmental and applied solutions. Our globally diverse team of 71,000 associates is united by a common culture and operating system, the Danaher Business System, which serves as our competitive advantage. We generated $19.9B in revenue last year. We are ranked #162 on the Fortune 500 and our stock has outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 5,200% over 25 years.

Danaher’s Product Identification Platform, with revenues of +$2B USD, is comprised of Videojet, Pantone, Esko, X-Rite, Foba, Linx, Laetus and AVT, a group of technology companies dedicated to helping customers give products unique identities. Through innovative software and hardware solutions for marking and coding, color selection and communication, packaging development, management and production, and track and trace, the Product Identification companies are simplifying the packaging value chain for 90% of products produced around the world.

Danaher is committed to competitive compensation that typically has key components including base salary, variable annual incentive compensation based on personal and company performance, and long-term incentive.