The posting
For this role you may be home-based within Europe with the ability to travel regularly.
About Us
Tate & Lyle is on a journey of change, inspired by our purpose of Transforming Lives through the Science of Food. Today, we are a global leader in sweetening, texture and fortification products that remove calories and add fibre. Customers use our innovations to create healthier, tastier food and drink for billions of consumers. Across the world, we are unlocking the curiosity and courage in our people – to foster a truly experimental culture and create a tech-enabled, more agile, risk-ready operation. Join us to play your part in growing our business and its positive impact on communities, society and the planet.
About this role:
The Technical Sales Director, Key Accounts & EMEA Category Expertise Lead (EMEA TS Director) oversees the Technical Sales and Category Expertise functions, guiding its strategy, execution, and performance across categories for Key Accounts (KA) - Partners and Enterprise accounts, and for selected regional accounts in coordination with regional Technical Sales teams.
The role ensures that technical engagement consistently advances customer and business priorities by embedding solution-selling excellence, defining technical direction for Key Accounts, and maintaining close alignment with Commercial, Marketing, R&I, Applications & Solutions, and Product Management teams.
Working closely with senior leadership, this senior technical role integrates the voice of the customer into solution development, long‑term account planning, and strategic decision‑making, ultimately driving customer satisfaction and commercial success
This position plays a leading role in driving pipeline‑led growth by strengthening opportunity identification, prioritization, and technical validation across categories. It leads the definition, development, and deployment of EMEA Growth Initiatives and provides targeted technical leadership on high‑value customer engagements beyond the Key Account portfolio when doing so enhances strategic outcomes.
The Technical Sales Director, Key Accounts & EMEA Category Expertise Lead also acts as a senior technical interface for selected Key Accounts, cultivating executive-level relationships and unlocking multi-year commercial opportunities.
A core responsibility of this role is building and safeguarding technical excellence across EMEA, leading knowledge preservation and succession planning, sets standards for category and application expertise, and guides capability development across regional Technical Sales teams. By influencing the broader commercial strategy and ensuring strong alignment between technical capabilities and growth ambitions. The role positions Technical Sales as a strategic value creator for both customers and the organization.
Accountabilities:
- Participate in the development of, and oversee the implementation of the regional strategy for Technical Sales, ensuring strong alignment with commercial priorities and consistent application of solution‑selling principles to deliver differentiated value across categories and priority accounts
- In coordination with the KA Commercial team and (if required) regional Technical Sales teams, provides technical support for Enterprise and Partner accounts, ensuring consistency, excellence, and customer‑centred delivery that reinforces our value propositions
- Grow revenue and margins (in line with Plan) through the creation and development of technical opportunities from the deployment of our categories’ growth priorities (L1/L2 Pipeline projects, NPD, campaigns, chassis) ensuring strong technical qualification, prioritisation, and acceleration of opportunities that strengthen regional pipeline-led growth
- Provide strategic technical leadership directly supporting the Business Development Director in shaping and delivering the region’s growth agenda
- Selectively supports regional Technical Sales teams to provide regional technical support for non-KA, ensuring consistency, excellence, and customer‑centred delivery that reinforces our value propositions
- Serve as the senior technical interface for selected KA, fostering executive‑level relationships that enhance trust, shape joint roadmaps, and unlock long term opportunities
- Provide leadership for the KA Technical Sales and Category Expertise function, fostering a high-performance environment that champions customer‑centric solution selling and cross‑functional collaboration
- Drive change management within the Technical Sales and Category Expertise team to ensure adoption of solution‑selling methodologies and readiness for future industry trends
- Identifying capability-gaps and collaborate with the regional Technical Sales leads to prioritize and develop the necessary technical capabilities required for successful execution
- Ensure the preservation, growth, and strategic dissemination of technical knowledge across the EMEA region, enabling consistent expertise in categories, applications, and solutions.
- Develop, maintain, and elevate regional and global technical capabilities by actively contributing to and leading knowledge‑sharing activities at regional, sub‑regional, and global Community of Practice levels.
- Establish and manage robust succession plans to secure continuity of critical technical competencies within the EMEA Technical Sales organization.
- Resource allocation and prioritization across EU CI&CCs for the region and across categories, ensuring deployment that maximises value creation and pipeline advancement.
- Partner with senior leadership across Sales, Marketing and Business Development to refine technical offerings for customers, aligning them with the evolving voice of the customer and market trends
- Champion the identification, development, and activation of growth initiatives across EMEA in alignment with Marketing, the TS Leadership Team, and Commercial Leadership Teams.
- Collaborate with R&I, Application & Solutions, and Product Management teams to uncover and shape opportunities that strengthen the regional growth pipeline.
- Lead the execution and deployment of prioritized initiatives throughout EMEA to maximize commercial impact, customer value, and business delivery
- Gather competitive, technical, and commercial insights from customer interactions and ensuring these are communicated effectively to Commercial, Marketing, Business Development, and product management teams.
- Collaborate with Commercial Leaders to jointly develop Key customer relationships and take accountability for developing and executing strategic customer growth plans, based on opportunity sizing and pipeline conversion priorities
- Manage high-priority customer escalations, providing strategic guidance on issue resolution
- Establish and monitor performance metrics to maintain high standards across the Technical Sales function.
- Identify and implement innovative solutions and tools to enhance the efficiency of the technical support process.
Skills and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in technical discipline. Master’s degree or equivalent experience preferred.
- Expert knowledge in multiple related specialised fields, disciplines, tools and approaches within the Technical Sales function.
- Experience in managing and developing customer facing and preferably lab-based teams across geographies
- Advanced communication skills to convey highly complicated and sometimes commercially sensitive information with a diverse audience.
- Able to significantly influence the decision-making across categories at regional and global level engaging with relevant stakeholders and forums
- Demonstrated successes in value-based selling (i.e. using technical and commercial elements across customer touch points to demonstrate total value delivery to customer)
- Developing short to mid-term (1-3 years) strategies and delivering longer-term strategies (3-5 years)
- Able to identify emerging and future technical needs across categories and more broadly across F&B
- Demonstrated ability to network with peers, counterparts and stakeholders at regional and global levels to identify cross-region/category learning opportunities and ensure the global initiatives pipeline supports growth aspiration of the category
- Able to solve highly complex problems which require advanced decision-making, original thought and new solutions.
- Proven ability to close critical deals or contracts by effectively influencing and negotiating with internal stakeholders and Leadership Team.
- Demonstrated success in negotiating and securing high-value partnership with senior external stakeholders (i.e. customer counterpart such as category R&I, Application and Solutions/Innovation leaders), showcasing strong persuasion and negotiation skills.
Desired Competency Profile:
- This role requires an Expertise level of ‘Portfolio Expertise & Category Technical Expertise’, encompassing a strong understanding of competitor offerings, their applications, and technical trends. This allows individuals to inform competitive positioning and lead in-depth technical discussions with customers to address challenges and shape opportunities.
- An advanced level of ‘Business Development & Opportunity Prioritisation’ is needed in this role, using diverse data sources to identify growth areas, and contributing leading technical expertise to shape a holistic view of opportunities. This includes prioritising opportunities based on evolving market conditions, ensuring sufficient resources, and leading the technical execution of high-value opportunities within the pipeline.
- Expert ‘Solution Design & Project Management’ anticipates market and regulatory shifts to identify strategic opportunities, engaging senior stakeholders to establish new technical standards. Leads cross-functional teams to architect high-value solutions, co-leading lab-based research, and development to establish best practices and taking accountability for long-term project success.
- An Expertise level of ‘Solution Selling’ involves collaborating with stakeholders to gain a holistic view of customer needs, including those uncommunicated. This expertise enables individuals to develop tailored solutions combining products and services, while supporting Sales in understanding cost and value propositions. Communicates technically complex solutions clearly and prepares data-driven proposals.
- Expert ‘Solution, Commercial & Financial Effectiveness’ involves supporting innovative financial analysis and decision-making to enhance commercial effectiveness. Individuals support leadership teams in scenario planning and risk management for technical solutions, manage cross-portfolio solution commercials to identify strategic opportunities, and evaluate large-scale innovation. They also align technical efforts with company financials to drive overall commercial strategy.
- An Expert level of ‘Customer Relationship Management & Market Engagement’ involves understanding priority customer business strategies and building long-term senior relationships with those customers. Will position the company as a thought leader in industry forums and provide visible leadership. Can strategically adjust engagement to optimise value.
- Expert ‘Capability Development & Coaching’ is demonstrated by regularly assessing team competency, benchmarking performance, and balancing market needs with business ambitions to prioritise development. Roles at this level will drive the competency agenda, collaborating with L&D to define needs and continuously improve training pathways. They will also manage underperformance effectively and play a leading role in shaping the company's coaching and development culture.
What We Can Offer You
You will work in an exceptional team that focuses on our customers, works with innovative products, collaborates with industry experts, and gives you the opportunity to grow every day.
We also offer:
- A competitive salary
- Bonus opportunity
- Flexible working hours
- Home office with option to work from regional sites
Tate & Lyle is an equal opportunity employer, committed to the strength of an inclusive workforce.
Tate & Lyle is an equal opportunity employer, committed to the strength of an inclusive workforce.
