Key Account Manager - Functional Nutrition

Are you passionate about turning functional nutrition concepts into food and beverage products that consumers love?

As a Key Account Manager – Functional Nutrition, you will drive the growth and development of strategic customer relationships in the food, beverage and nutrition markets. Managing a portfolio of one to ten named customers, you will connect customer needs with Döhler’s portfolio of products, services and solutions — including fortification, supplementation and functional ingredients.

You will help customers transform nutritional concepts into commercially successful products while delivering sustainable growth, profitability and long-term customer value for Döhler.

Your Impact in This Role:

This role is central to customer success, innovation and business growth. You will:

• Grow strategic customer partnerships by building trusted relationships with key decision-makers and developing a deep understanding of their businesses, markets and ambitions.
• Turn customer needs into opportunities by identifying relevant applications for fortification, supplementation and functional nutrition solutions.
• Represent Döhler’s broader portfolio and work with internal experts to develop tailored solutions that create meaningful customer value.
• Drive commercial success by achieving sales, turnover, margin and profitability targets, while identifying and addressing potential deviations.
• Lead the customer account-planning cycle by creating, implementing and regularly updating account development plans for assigned customers.
• Bring ideas to life by developing sales initiatives, identifying new business opportunities and helping customers turn nutrition concepts into successful products.
• Own customer projects end to end, from the initial opportunity through concept development, sampling, quotation, evaluation, contracting, scale-up and launch.
• Connect customers with the right internal expertise, collaborating closely with R&D, application technology, regulatory, marketing, supply chain and commercial teams.
• Create momentum across the organisation by ensuring effective information exchange and coordinated follow-up between customers and internal interfaces.
• Strengthen customer loyalty through proactive relationship management, continuous validation of customer requirements and professional follow-up.
• Stay close to market developments by identifying emerging opportunities in areas such as functional beverages, fortified foods, sports nutrition, healthy ageing, immunity and gut health.
• Improve the way we work by using Döhler’s digital systems consistently, supporting process optimisation and contributing to the digitalisation of business processes.
• Protect the customer experience by ensuring that complaints are managed effectively and resolved in collaboration with the relevant teams

Success in this role means building trusted customer partnerships, converting opportunities into profitable business and helping customers launch innovative, market-relevant nutrition products.

Your Profile:

You are a commercially minded and customer-focused professional who enjoys building trusted relationships and turning customer needs into attractive business opportunities. You bring:

• A degree in Food Science, Nutrition, Food Technology, Business Administration, Sales, Marketing or a related field.
• Three to five years of professional experience, ideally in functional nutrition, food and beverage, ingredients, dietary supplements or health-focused consumer goods.
• Experience in account management, technical sales, customer development, business development or customer project management.
• An understanding of functional nutrition, food fortification, supplementation and functional ingredients.
• The ability to translate customer needs into commercially attractive product or application solutions.
• Strong relationship-building, communication, presentation and negotiation skills.
• Fluency in English and the relevant local language.
• A proactive, solution-oriented mindset, with the confidence to take ownership of customer topics.
• Strong organisational and project-management skills, with the ability to manage multiple customers, priorities and deadlines.
• A commercial understanding of sales targets, pricing, profitability and business growth.
• The ability to collaborate effectively with technical, commercial and cross-functional teams.
• Agility in responding to changing customer needs, market conditions and project requirements.
• A genuine passion for creating customer value, bringing ideas to life and delivering sustainable results.

Nice to Have:

It would be an advantage if you also bring:

• Experience managing regional or strategic accounts, preferably within functional nutrition, food, beverage, ingredients or dietary supplements.
• Experience creating and managing account development plans for strategic customers.
• Familiarity with CRM, ERP or other digital sales-management systems.
• Experience managing customer projects end to end, from sampling and quotations through to contract, scale-up and product launch.
• Strong market intelligence and the ability to identify emerging customer, consumer and competitor trends.
• Knowledge of ordering cycles, batch sizes, minimum order quantities and payment terms.
• Experience negotiating complex customer agreements and creating win-win solutions.
• An entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm for improving processes and ways of working.

You will thrive in this role if you enjoy combining commercial responsibility, customer partnership and innovation—and if you want your work to have a visible impact on customer success and Döhler’s sustainable growth.