Director, Manufacturing Solutions

Position Description:

As KPA’s subject matter expert for the manufacturing industry, this role is responsible for ensuring continued growth in the manufacturing vertical. As a technical leader who can bridge the gap between sales and product teams, this role involves working closely with sales, product, marketing, and client success leadership to develop and implement strategies for engaging prospects, understanding client needs, and delivering value-driven solutions to the manufacturing vertical.

Key Responsibilities:

Product:

• Maintain a manufacturing-specific client-facing roadmap based on market trends and findings, prospect feedback, and client feedback.
• Work closely and collaborate with product team to ensure manufacturing-specific road mapped items with the greatest impact make it onto the overall product roadmap.
• Ensure sales, implementation, CSMs, and support teams receive appropriate “refresher” style training on product features and functionality that have direct impact to the manufacturing market (product teams still lead the initial/first training on all new features/functions/products/etc).

Marketing:

• Work with event marketing to determine the most impactful and strategic manufacturing events are being attended.
• Work with event marketing to promote speaking opportunities at manufacturing events.
• Attend manufacturing events with manufacturing specific sellers and solutions experts.
• Support partner marketing on manufacturing related partnership where applicable.
• Work closely with product marketing and content marketing to ensure the “Flex for Manufacturing Safety” message is continually refined.
• Partner with client marketing on various efforts that impact existing manufacturing clients.

Sales:

• Develop and implement pre-sales strategies in collaboration with sales leadership. Ensure that Solutions Engineers deliver exceptional technical presentations, product demos, and proof-of-concepts that address manufacturing-specific needs and showcase the value of our solutions to the manufacturing vertical.
• By working with Sales Enablement and Sales Directors, equip the sales team with the necessary technical resources, knowledge, and tools to engage with prospects effectively. Assist in the creation of technical sales content, including presentations, demos, and technical documentation.

Implementation:

• Ensure implementation team is fully briefed on the needs, desires, wants of manufacturing clients in terms of product usage and potential impact to implementation based off of this vertical-specific usage

Client Success:

• When applicable, work with CSMs on existing manufacturing clients that might need extra attention as it pertains to manufacturing-specific use cases. In these cases, understand their technical requirements, identify potential challenges, and deliver tailored solutions that address business needs

Competitive Analysis:

• Continually monitor and provide analysis of manufacturing-specific competition. Share this information with marketing (battlecards/competitor deep dives), sales, and product.

M&A Activity:

• Have an active role in any M&A activity that involves the manufacturing space or impact to enerprospects or clients
• Support strategic finance manager and CFO in these M&A activities where needed
• Continually vet the manufacturing technology landscape for potential acquisition targets and feed this information on to CFO

Subject Matter Expertise:

• Keep a pulse on the manufacturing market as it pertains to manufacturing safety and the adoption of technology in the vertical.
• Monitor industry trends to ensure KPA products are continually positioned for success in the manufacturing vertical.
• Offer in-depth knowledge and insights on the manufacturing space, acting as a consultant and resource to colleagues and teams.
• Conduct research to stay updated on industry trends and best practices, analyze data to inform decision-making.
• Develop and present a yearly manufacturing market outlook as it pertains to safety trends and manufacturing safety technology.

Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience in Solutions Engineering, Pre-Sales Engineering, or a related technical role within a B2B SaaS company, with at least 3-5 years in a leadership or executive-level capacity.
• Deep technical expertise in SaaS platforms, cloud technologies, and solution architecture.
• Proven track record of leading successful pre-sales or solutions engineering teams, with demonstrated success in driving revenue growth through technical sales support.
• Strong customer-facing skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience collaborating with product and engineering teams to deliver customer-centric solutions.
• Proficiency with CRM software (e.g., Salesforce) and technical sales tools.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a strategic and data-driven approach.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

Compensation:

• Annual base salary range between $150-180k
• Bonus potential of 20% annually

Physical Requirements

• Physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

- Working at a computer typing and view a screen - Constantly

- Visual Recognition - Constantly

- Hearing/Listening - Frequently

- Travel - Infrequently