The Director, Pulp Sales provides functional leadership for the pulp business units for Sappi North America (SNA).

This position plans, organizes and controls the sale of pulp sales of SNA pulp. The Director, Pulp Sales works closely with Sappi Papier Holding (SPH), the distributor of all SNA produced pulp sold outside of SNA and Canada, and with Sappi South Africa (SA), acting as distributor for all Sappi SA pulp sold in the USA and Canada. 

The position reports to the VP Pulp Business. This role may be based in Cloquet, Minnesota, Portland, Maine or Boston, MA.

Responsibilities:

• Plans, organizes and controls the sale of pulp sales of Sappi North America (SNA) pulp.  Works closely with SPH, the distributor of all SNA produced pulp sold outside of SNA and Canada, and with Sappi South Africa (SA), acting as distributor for all Sappi SA pulp sold in the USA and Canada. 
• Drives profitability for SNA pulp segment through customer mix / price. Evaluates Make vs Buy options. Develop new markets and grade offerings.
• Creates and maintains a network of relationships throughout the industry with regards to strategy planning and impact on pulp markets and pricing.
• Assures that production and production scheduling produce the pulps to meet customer shipping requirements.
• Manages and analyzes pulp inventories at the mill site.
• Develops budgets, sales forecasts for businesses.
• Engages with customers in order to ensure business needs are met. Directly engages with SNA customers (Matane, Cloquet and Saicor) to acquire feedback on product and pricing. Engage with customers supporting export business through SPH (Matane, Cloquet). 
• Coordinate quality issues, investigations, claims, product assessments between Customers, Mills and SPH. 
• Work with NA Forestry Certification team to maintain correct procedures, free up allocations of credits, and maintain appropriate credit balances. Assure credits are used to support business growth. Helps Sappi to evaluate and adopt environmental programs as appropriate such as EUDR.
• Assure controls and systems in place for to run the business and withstand audit including ISO, Forestry and internal controls. Audit purposes - SIN, ISO, Forestry. 
• Works with SNA group to ensure IT systems in place and  IT resources used correctly for business. Support projects for pulp group as needed.
• Drives safety and engagement for SNA pulp group. 
• Manages a staff of 2 full time employees. (If position not located in Cloquet these positions might become dotted line.)
• Responsible for hiring, training, performance management of direct reports

Qualifications:

• BS/BA degree required. MBA preferred. 
• 10+ years of relevant experience required including business, financial, technical and/or management
• Requires excellent interpersonal, communication and analytic skills
• Requires ability to negotiate aggressively and manage direct and indirect customer relationships
• Requires ability to engage with mill, R&D and customers on technical aspects of production process and specifications as well as engage with supply chain on logistics planning.
• Must have entrepreneurial and leadership skills.

• Ability to travel internationally, up to 25%