Regional Sales Manager, France, Automotive Aftermarket

What to Expect

The Regional Sales Manager, Automotive Replacement (AR) France is responsible for leading Gates' automotive aftermarket business in France and delivering sustainable sales and profitability growth across the region.

The role leads a team of 8 sales professionals and is accountable for developing sales strategies, strengthening customer relationships, and driving market share growth. As the leader of the French sales organization, the Regional Sales Manager ensures the successful execution of commercial initiatives while fostering a high-performance, customer-focused culture.

Working closely with distributors, key accounts, and cross-functional teams, the role plays a critical part in supporting Gates' growth ambitions in the French automotive aftermarket.

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Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, develop, and manage a team of 8 sales professionals across France.
• Define and execute the regional sales strategy in alignment with EMEA business objectives.
• Deliver sales, profitability, market share, and strategic growth targets for the French market.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with distributors, buying groups, wholesalers, and key aftermarket customers.
• Support the sales team in managing strategic accounts and complex commercial negotiations.
• Identify new business opportunities and drive customer acquisition and business expansion initiatives.
• Monitor market trends, customer performance, and competitive activities to support business decisions.
• Ensure effective sales planning, forecasting, budgeting, and performance tracking.
• Lead annual business reviews and joint business planning activities with key customers.
• Collaborate with Marketing, Product Management, Customer Experience, Supply Chain, Pricing and Finance teams to deliver customer and business objectives.
• Drive the successful implementation of pricing, promotional, and product launch initiatives.
• Foster a culture of accountability, teamwork, continuous improvement, and customer focus.
• Ensure compliance with company policies, processes, and ethical business standards.

Keys to Success

• Requires a comprehensive understanding of internal and industry standards and principles
• You will be responsible for selling Gates' products through a team in a geographical area. Research customer needs and develop application of products and services in an effective manner to determine market strategies and goals for each product and service. Take responsibility for and making every effort to resolve communication, trust and respect concerns and problems. Implement strategies to accelerate growth of new and additional products and/or new markets. Monitor competitive environment to identify opportunities and countermeasures to address competition. Has primary accountability for the performance and revenue results in a geographical area and additional accountability for strategic initiatives; manages established accounts in a specified geographic area. Impacts the level of service and the team’s ability to meet revenue goals within their area. Works within departmental objectives and priorities. Implements, interprets and executes policies; recommends modifications. Uses judgment to identify and resolve day-to-day problems. Decision making involves compiling and organizing information and selecting best option from well-defined alternatives

Supervisory Responsibilities

• 8 direct reports (6 District Sales Managers (DSM) and 2 Sales Coordinators.)
• Manages multiple related teams, typically through manager and/or team lead
• Manages large team of professionals and or managers
• Sets organizational priorities and allocates resources; executes department business plans
• Has team leadership, performance management and people development responsibility to build strong teams

Requirements and Preferred Skills

• 11-15 years of professional experience, with minimum 8 years of progressive sales experience within the automotive aftermarket industry
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Engineering, or a related field.
• Previous experience leading and developing sales teams.
• Proven track record of delivering profitable sales growth and achieving commercial targets.
• Strong knowledge of the French automotive aftermarket distribution landscape.
• Experience managing relationships with distributors, buying groups, wholesalers, and key accounts.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach, and motivate teams to achieve high performance.
• Strong commercial acumen and negotiation skills.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and relationship management abilities.
• Strong analytical, planning, and forecasting capabilities.
• Experience working within a multinational, matrix environment.
• Fluent in French and English, both written and spoken.

TRAVEL: 

• Regular travel throughout France to support customers, distributors, and the sales team.
• Occasional travel within EMEA for leadership meetings, customer visits or events, training, and regional business reviews.
• Estimated travel requirement: 50-60%.