Director, Commercial Sales & Business Development

Compensation: $58K–$65K base salary with benefits + commission structure.

One-year contract with extension to permanent.

Director, Commercial Sales & Business Development

Reporting to the Executive Director and working closely with Finance, Facility/Operations and other organizational leads, the Director of Commercial Sales & Business Development will lead Ocean Legacy’s earned revenue growth. This position holds primary accountability for converting existing and emerging market opportunities into profitable sales and building a financially sustainable social-enterprise model that advances Ocean Legacy’s mission to protect and preserve the world’s oceans.

As a hands-on commercial leader, the Director will build and manage the sales pipeline, develop and maintain strong customer relationships, prepare commercially sound quotations, negotiate agreements, and close business across Ocean Legacy’s materials and product portfolio. The Director will also identify new markets, partnerships and commercialization opportunities that support the continued growth and diversification of earned revenue.

Working closely with Operations and Finance, the Director will ensure that sales commitments are commercially viable, aligned with production capacity, and supported by appropriate pricing, margin, cost and delivery assumptions. The Director will contribute to budgeting and forecasting, conduct financial and market analyses, monitor commercial performance, and provide actionable reporting to the Executive Director, Managing Director, leadership team and, as required, the Board of Directors.

The Director will also help develop the systems, market intelligence, pricing strategies and commercial plans required to scale Ocean Legacy’s earned-revenue business unit. Through disciplined sales leadership and strategic business development, this role will strengthen the organization’s long-term financial sustainability and expand the reach and impact of its circular-economy solutions.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Commercial Product & Market Development:

• Translate Ocean Legacy’s production capabilities, materials and products into clear commercial offerings, customer value propositions and priority markets.
• Assess market demand, customer requirements, competitive positioning and pricing to identify the strongest commercial opportunities across Ocean Legacy’s product portfolio.
• Work closely with Facility/Operations leads to align sales commitments with production capacity, product specifications, inventory, fulfillment and delivery requirements.
• Use customer and market feedback to identify opportunities for product improvement, new applications and commercially viable product development.
  

Sales Operations & Commercial Execution:

• Maintain disciplined CRM and pipeline management, including opportunity stages, customer communications, next actions, forecasts and sales activity.
• Ensure timely follow-up on inbound inquiries, specifications, quotations and active opportunities.
• Coordinate with Operations on product availability, specifications, production schedules, freight/logistics and customer delivery requirements.
• Establish and document scalable sales processes, pricing/quoting practices, customer information and commercial SOPs.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to oversee the end-to-end product development lifecycle, ensuring the highest quality and environmental standards are being met.

Business Development:

• Develop and implement a business development strategy to drive revenue growth and financial sustainability.
• Support partnerships with key stakeholders including corporate partners, and other relevant organizations.
• Identify and pursue new business opportunities, create compelling business cases, and lead negotiations to secure partnerships and contracts.
• Own the full B2B sales cycle from prospecting and qualification through quoting, negotiation, closing, fulfillment coordination and account development.
• Build, manage and actively progress a qualified sales pipeline across Ocean Legacy’s recycled plastic materials, products and other earned revenue opportunities.
• Proactively pursue new customers and markets while converting existing inbound leads and commercial opportunities into revenue.
• Develop accurate quotations and commercial proposals using product costs, gross margin requirements, logistics considerations and production capacity.
• Negotiate pricing, commercial terms and contracts within approved parameters and lead opportunities through to signed agreement and collected revenue.
• Develop and grow key customer relationships, identifying opportunities for repeat business, expanded volume and cross-selling across the product portfolio.

Sales Enablement, Marketing & Brand:

• Lead the development and execution of marketing activities that support OLF’s commercial objectives, product portfolio and earned revenue growth.
• Develop and maintain the sales and marketing materials required to support customer acquisition and conversion, including product information, specifications, presentations, case studies and other customer-facing materials.
• Manage relevant digital and marketplace channels, ensuring product listings, messaging and commercial information remain current and effective.
• Maintain consistent OLF brand positioning and messaging across commercial communications and customer touchpoints.
• Identify practical marketing opportunities that support lead generation, market development and sales conversion.

Financial Management:

• Own revenue forecasting and commercial performance reporting for the earned revenue portfolio.
• Monitor sales, gross margin, pipeline conversion, customer concentration, average sales cycle and other agreed commercial KPIs.
• Work with Finance to establish pricing and margin parameters and ensure commercial decisions support financial sustainability.
• Identify underperforming products, customers or channels and recommend corrective action.
• Develop and manage budgets for the earned revenue commercialization business unit.
• Monitor financial performance, analyze variances, and implement corrective actions as needed to ensure the financial ROI and sustainability of commercial initiatives.
• Work closely with finance and accounting teams to ensure transparency and financial accountability of all commercial transactions.
• Working closely with cross-functional teams to contribute to performance management reporting to quantifiably gauge the impact of initiatives.
  

Team Leadership:

• Build the vision for this new commercial business unit, and lead and grow a high-performing team responsible for business expansion of OLF product portfolio.
• Foster a culture of innovation, sustainability, and collaboration within the business unit, inspiring team members to contribute creatively to our mission.
• Provide mentorship and professional development opportunities to enable team members to excel in their roles and contribute to the success of our plastic cleanup initiatives.
• Provide commercial leadership across the organization, working effectively across Operations, Finance, and Impact/Sustainability.
• Establish the commercial processes, accountabilities and capabilities needed to scale the function as revenue grows.
• Over time, help define and build the sales/business development team required to support growth.

Skills and Qualifications:

• Minimum of 5 years of proven experience in progressive B2B sales and business development experience with demonstrated responsibility for revenue generation and business, with focus on environmental or sustainability-related initiatives.
• Maintain a strong commitment to the organization's mission and values.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and accountability within the team.
• Demonstrate strong leadership and interpersonal skills to motivate and inspire the team.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Engineering, or a related field; MBA preferred.
• Passion for developing a social enterprise business model to balance purpose with the purpose for non-profit organization.
• Demonstrated success in leading cross-functional teams and driving results in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong analytical and strategic thinking skills, with the ability to translate insights into actionable plans.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage and influence internal and external stakeholders.
• Strong project management skills with the ability to oversee multiple initiatives simultaneously.
• Demonstrated success building and converting sales pipelines, including prospecting, qualification, quoting, negotiation, closing and account growth.
• Experience selling physical products, materials or commercially complex solutions. Experience in manufacturing, industrial products, construction, recycling, plastics, materials, circular economy or adjacent sectors is strongly preferred.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, including pricing, gross margin, forecasting and evaluating the economics of potential sales opportunities.
• Experience managing CRM-based sales pipelines and forecasts; HubSpot or similar CRM experience preferred.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, including pricing, gross margin, forecasting and evaluating the economics of potential sales opportunities.
• Experience managing CRM-based sales pipelines and forecasts; HubSpot or similar CRM experience preferred.
• Strong negotiation, customer relationship and contract-development skills, with demonstrated ability to move opportunities through to signed agreements and revenue.
• Comfortable working in an entrepreneurial, resource-constrained organization where systems are evolving and the successful candidate will both execute and help build the processes required to scale.
• Ability to work closely with production/operations teams to translate customer requirements into realistic specifications, pricing, timelines and fulfillment commitments.
• Experience with commercialization, social enterprise, international markets, licensing or IP-based business models is an asset.

Within the first year, success will include:

• Building and maintaining a healthy, qualified and accurately forecasted commercial pipeline.
• Converting priority opportunities into profitable, repeatable revenue.
• Improving the speed and consistency of lead follow-up, quoting and customer conversion.
• Establishing clear CRM, pricing, quoting and sales-management processes.
• Growing key customer relationships and repeat business.
• Providing leadership with reliable visibility into pipeline, revenue, margin and commercial risks.
• Developing a practical commercial growth plan aligned with OLF’s production capacity and evolving commercialization strategy.