Global Business Development Lead

Job Purpose:

Lawson Fuses is entering an exciting phase of sustainable growth and international expansion. The Global Business Development Lead will be responsible and accountable for developing and executing commercial growth strategies across key international markets including Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

The role combines strategic business development, sales leadership and marketing responsibility to drive profitable growth, strengthen market position and enhance customer engagement across global markets. The successful candidate will lead an international team of Business Development Managers, develop high-value customer relationships and work closely with the leadership team to shape and deliver the commercial strategy for the business.

This is a highly visible customer-facing leadership role requiring a commercially astute individual who can influence senior stakeholders, build sustainable growth platforms and drive execution through both direct customer engagement and leadership of regional teams.

This represents an exceptional opportunity to influence the future direction of Lawson Fuses whilst developing organisational capability, commercial excellence and long-term customer partnerships.

Business Overview:

Incorporated in 1938, Lawson Fuses Limited (LFL) is a global firm that operates in fuse gear market with a focus on design, development and manufacture of Low Voltage High Rupture Capacity (HRC) fuses and associated fuse holders. With HQ in UK and manufacturing facilities in India, LFL global clientele is spread across several countries including (but not limited to) UK, Middle East, Africa, India, Malaysia, Australia, South Korea and Hong Kong. The customer segment for the business is Utilities, Wholesale Distribution and Original Equipment Manufacturers across the globe. With ISO 17025 ASTA certified R&D lab and ASTA certified manufacturing plants, LFL focuses on safety, quality and speed of product delivery.

LFL is part of Lucy Group which is a diversified international group operating in businesses across several sectors and has 3 main business divisions: Lucy Controls, Lucy Electric & Lucy Real Estate. LFL is part of Lucy Control business.

Lawson Fuses is a business that is going through a period of exciting change. The role of the business development lead will be directly influencing the vision of the business.

Job Content:

This role reports to Business Head (GM) and is a key member of Lawson Fuses’ leadership team.

The role is responsible for leading business development and marketing activities across assigned international markets, whilst managing regional Business Development Managers and Marketing team located in the Middle East, India and Asia Pacific.

The role holder will work closely with R&D, Product Management, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance and senior leadership teams to develop and execute commercial growth strategies.

The role will require significant customer engagement, international travel and active participation in strategic business planning activities.

Role Base: Hybrid, based primarily at Lawson Fuses HQ in Newcastle upon Tyne with regular customer visits and international travel of up to 50%. 

Key Accountabilities:

Commercial Strategy & Business Development

• Develop and execute commercial growth strategies aligned with annual budgets and medium-term plans
• Identify, evaluate and pursue new opportunities across Utilities, OEMs, EPC contractors, wholesalers and strategic channel partners.
• Develop market-entry and market-expansion plans for key global territories.
• Create and execute go-to-market strategies for new product introductions.
• Build sustainable sales pipelines and oversee opportunity progression to closure.
• Lead strategic customer engagement activities with major accounts across global markets.
• Negotiate commercial agreements with key customers, distributors and partners.
• Drive profitable revenue growth and increased market penetration within assigned regions.
• Provide regular market intelligence regarding competitors, pricing, market trends and customer requirements.

Sales Leadership

• Lead, motivate and align the international commercial team towards agreed business objectives.
• Monitor team performance against revenue, margin, pipeline and activity targets.
• Establish a culture of customer centricity, accountability and commercial excellence.
• Implement best-practice sales processes and opportunity management disciplines.
• Ensure effective CRM utilisation and data-driven decision making throughout the sales cycle.
• Lead regular business reviews and performance discussions with regional team members.
• Support complex customer negotiations and high-value opportunity pursuits.

Marketing Leadership

• Develop and implement annual marketing plans aligned with commercial growth objectives.
• Lead product positioning, value proposition development and brand messaging activities.
• Drive digital and traditional marketing initiatives to improve market awareness and lead generation.
• Oversee customer engagement campaigns, exhibitions, conferences and industry events.
• Work closely with product management and technical teams to create compelling customer-facing content.
• Monitor marketing performance metrics and return on investment.
• Support channel partners with marketing initiatives designed to grow market share and customer engagement.

Strategic Customer & Stakeholder Engagement

• Develop and maintain executive-level relationships with strategic customers, utilities, distributors and OEMs.
• Represent Lawson Fuses at industry events, conferences and professional forums.
• Act as a trusted commercial advisor to customers and business partners.
• Provide market insights and recommendations that influence business strategy and investment decisions.
• Support development and execution of broader commercial initiatives within the UK and international markets.

Business Planning & Governance

• Track, analyse and report key commercial and marketing performance metrics.
• Prepare monthly, quarterly and annual business updates for senior leadership.
• Support annual budgeting and medium-term planning processes.
• Present commercial performance, market opportunities and strategic recommendations to leadership teams.
• Ensure compliance with company policies, governance requirements and commercial best practices

Qualifications, Experience & Skills:

• Degree qualified in Business, Marketing, Engineering or a related discipline.
• MBA or equivalent commercial qualification would be advantageous.
• Overall Experience Level: 12-15+ years of commercial, sales and business development experience, including at least 5 years in leadership roles managing geographically dispersed teams.
• Industry Experience: Experience within fusegear, switchgear, electrical distribution, power systems, industrial electrical products or related sectors.
• Candidates with experience selling to Utilities, OEMs, EPC contractors, electrical wholesalers and industrial end users will be particularly attractive.

Market Experience: Proven experience developing international business across some combination of:

• Middle East
• Asia Pacific
• Africa
• Europe

Experience working across multi-cultural international markets is essential.

Commercial Leadership Experience

• Experience developing and executing commercial strategies in line with annual and medium-term business objectives.
• Experience managing and developing international sales or business development teams.
• Experience building high-performance commercial organisations.
• Experience presenting business plans and strategic recommendations to senior leadership teams.
• Proven track record of delivering profitable revenue growth.

Strategic Account Management Experience

• Proven ability to engage and influence senior customer stakeholders.
• Experience managing strategic accounts and complex customer relationships.
• Strong negotiation, influencing and relationship management skills.
• Demonstrated capability to secure major contracts and long-term partnership agreements.

Technical & Market Development Experience

• Experience qualifying electrical products with utilities and OEM organisations.
• Experience developing business through distribution and channel partner networks.
• Track record of opening new markets and developing new customer segments.
• Strong understanding of route-to-market models across international regions.
• Experience supporting major tender submissions and contract negotiations.

Marketing Experience

• Experience developing and executing business-to-business marketing programmes.
• Experience managing exhibitions, trade events and lead-generation activities.
• Understanding of brand development, content marketing and customer engagement strategies.
• Experience measuring campaign effectiveness and marketing return on investment.

Soft skills:

• Exceptional leadership and people development capability.
• Strong commercial acumen and strategic thinking.
• Excellent communication, presentation and influencing skills.
• Ability to engage confidently with both senior executives and operational stakeholders.
• Analytical and data-driven decision-making capability.
• Resilient, proactive and results orientated.
• Highly collaborative with strong stakeholder management skills.
• Agile and comfortable operating in dynamic international environments.

Key Accountabilities: 

•    Develop and execute business development strategies aligned with company’s yearly budget and medium-term plans 
•    Create go to market strategies for new product launches within the assigned regions 
•    Identify key partnerships in assigned regions to build long term opportunities 
•    Generate and qualify new leads through networking, research and outreach 
•    Build key relationships with Utilities, Wholesalers and OEMs and understand key trends and gaps in the market alongside competitor updates 
•    Manage and nurture long term relationships to increase share of the market 
•    Represent the company at key networking events, exhibitions and industry conferences 
•    Oversee sales funnel on a regular basis and ensure appropriate follow up and closure 
•    Work closely with UK sales, sales support and marketing teams to improve lead generation and conversion rates in global markets 
•    Cross functional collaboration with marketing (on campaigns), product and operations team (service levels, quality) and offer transparent feedback from market on conditions, price and positioning 
•    Lead, motivate and align sales team to meet targets. Create a results driven culture and monitor performance on a weekly and monthly basis. 
•    Track, analyse, report and publish key business development metrics 
•    Prepare monthly and quarterly progress report to leadership team 
•    Adopt best practices in CRM and leverage data to drive decision making 
•    Support in preparation of yearly budget and medium-term plans 

Minimum Qualifications, Knowledge, and Experience 

•    Qualification in Business Management, Business Administration  
•    Overall Experience Level: 10-12 years; in new sales / business development  
•    Ideally, we are looking for candidates from UK and Europe 
•    Industry Experience: 
•    Ideally from fusegear industry albeit we are open to explore candidates from electronics and switchgear industry provided they deal with power distribution companies, wholesalers and OEMs.

Market Experience: 

Global OEM business development experience, international / territory experience: Middle East, Asia Pacific, Europe – or some combination of this is required.    

New Business Development – Strategic Experience:
•    Expertise in collaborating with senior leaders to develop credible medium-term plans backed by robust vision, goals and strategies 
•    Seasoned skills in analysing market trends, customer behaviour and identifying gaps / opportunities in the market 
•    Experience in developing credible annual business plans with clear execution paths to address identified opportunities  
•    Skills to foster strong long-term relationship with customers and partners across the globe

Sales – Technical Experience:
•    Experience in qualifying fusegear products (or similar) with global power utilities and global OEM accounts. 
•    Experience in penetrating new major global OEM accounts especially in Europe, Middle East and Asia. Experience in Africa and/or India and/or Australia & New Zealand will be an added advantage.  
•    Experience in growing OEM market and major accounts (not limited to manufacturers of LV panels, feeder pillars, RMUs, motor control / drives etc) for fusegear products in varied industries and applications Renewables, LV & MV Power Distribution, Power Electronics, Motor Control, Industrial Machinery and other industries 
•    Experience in identifying and growing partnerships in global regions via wholesalers and/or value-added resellers 
•    Candidates with a good network of existing relationships will be preferred

Sales – Tactical Experience:
•    Driving sales to monthly, quarterly and yearly targets with profitable and sustainable growth in mind 
•    Experience in collaborating with sales support teams on both presales and post sales activities. This includes tactical approach to increase win-ratios on tenders 
•    Monthly, quarterly and annual report generation to support board to make robust decisions 
•    Capability to build out a partner network, setting expectations and tracking performance  
•    Cross functional collaboration with other internal and external stakeholders to bring opportunity to closure