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Director, Sales & Business Development

United States

Helaina is a VC-backed biotech startup creating a new category of functional food products.

Our vision is to bring the functional properties of human proteins to food. Helaina will be the first company to put human milk proteins into food, defining a new category of consumer nutrition products focused on supporting immunity. We see a range of opportunities to use our breast milk proteins to enhance other types of functional foods for all segments of the population.

Helaina is backed by top VCs in the industry including Spark Capital, Siam Capital, Primary Venture Partners, and Plum Alley. We are a team of change-makers looking for our next team member who is intensely passionate about advancing synthetic biology for food and beverage products and redefining the future of nutrition.

About the Job:

Are you a sales leader with a track record of exceeding quotas and crushing goals?

We're a passionate startup shaking up the food ingredient market, and we're looking for a Director of Sales or Senior Director of Sales (title depending on experience) who thrives on new challenges. This is a chance to get in on the ground floor with an innovative product and build a sales force that leads the industry.

Reporting to the COO, this position will generate new pipelines and close existing bookings to ensure that revenue targets are met. Customers include North American food and nutrition brand companies and nutritional supplement brands.

The right candidate has a high degree of intuition, an innate drive to close deals, and a true feel for numbers. Experience selling high value ingredients B2B to functional foods, beverages, and supplements is a must.  

What You’ll Do:

  • Identify new books of business, advance opportunities and bring them to close. 
  • Close existing accounts and generate new book of business: 
    • Collaborate with marketing and provide input for successful marketing campaigns. 
    • Attend industry-related trade shows, including but not limited to, IFT, Natural Products Expo West, Supplyside West, etc.
    • Leverage your own network to identify new potential business opportunities. 
  • Qualification: 
    • Utilize a consultative, question-based sales method you learn about your customer; identify their challenges and determine if you are able to help them, thereby translating that into a sales project.
    • Respond on a timely basis to customer needs; make extra effort to follow-up; empathize with customer challenges and troubleshoot specific customer problems and demands.
  • Successful deal closing and sales performance:
    • Through proper account management & new business development, you successfully close qualified projects with your customer base. This includes collaboration with marketing to develop successful customer-specific presentations, creation of pricing quotes, among others.
    • Ability to drive a negotiation with customers to achieve a close.
  • Competitive intelligence and market knowledge: 
    • Have a pulse on market conditions such as supply, demand and indicative pricing for specific products.
    • Evaluate, monitor, and prepare competitor/competitive information to team when available. 
    • Through client visits, follow trade literature and attend conferences to best capitalize on market opportunities with the products and technology of the strategic business units. 
  • Reporting:
    • Utilize Hubspot to implement and document customer calls, visits and the development of the opportunity pipeline. 
    • Maintain customer profiles in Hubspot to ensure they are up to date.
    • Prepare reporting forecasts and report weekly/ monthly channel revenue and profit forecasts vs. budget objectives.  
    • Run the daily and weekly sales meetings with the goal of driving results
  • Peripheral duties: 
    • Collaborate with the COO and CFO on building a scalable revenue ops infrastructure. 
    • Leverage data to evaluate channel product portfolio to provide a recommendation on how to optimize sales strategy. 

About You:

  • You have a proven track record with a minimum of 7-10 years of the right type of experience exceeding sales goals in the food or supplement ingredient industry.
  • You have a relentless drive to secure deals and build long-term client relationships.
  • You are an ingredient aficionado with a deep understanding of the functional food industry landscape and a passion for nutrition.
  • You have a startup spirit, thrive in a dynamic environment, and love the challenge of building something from the ground up.
  • You are a closing architect, crafting compelling proposals that win over clients, leaving them confident they've made the right decision and eager to close the deal quickly.
  • You have knowledge of the supplements and food ingredient verticals and can hone narratives that drive nutritional value
  • You have excellent interpersonal skills. 
  • You are detail and process-oriented.
  • You have contacts in the functional foods and supplements industries
  • You are proficient on Hubspot. 
  • You are able to travel for client meetings as needed. 
  • You are passionate about Helaina’s philosophy and mission.
  • You have experience, either through education or exposure, to the nutrition space.

Compensation is market-competitive with a yearly cash base of $130,000k - $180,000k, plus a performance bonus based on sales targets, plus equity.

We use a disciplined approach to compensation.  We believe this is the only way to create a consistent, strategic, and equitable compensation structure that in turn unlocks healthy growth for our organization.  We build our range with benchmarking data for the particular role from Pave.com.  Because Pave hooks into HRIS, they have the most accurate data for early-stage companies.  We decide any given hire's offer based on three factors:

  1. first among them, expected performance in the role (based on performance in the interview process and proximity of experience);
  2. as well as seniority (amount of relevant experience);
  3. and location (different cost of living).

Benefits:

Helaina was founded on the belief that families should have freedom of choice.  We are committed to providing an inclusive workplace that does just that, supporting our team's health, wellbeing and professional development at every stage and milestone.  We are proud to offer comprehensive health care, generous parental leave and childcare reimbursement, equity packages and more.  A few highlights include:

  • Full medical, vision and dental coverage
  • Short and long term disability insurance coverage
  • 401k match (up to 3%)
  • Unlimited vacation days, including an all-company holiday between Christmas and New Year
  • Paid Parental Leave for both parents + flexible return to work program
  • Childcare reimbursement program
  • Commuter Benefits
  • Leadership Development coaching through BetterUp

 

Visit us at https://www.myhelaina.com/news to learn more about Helaina.

 

Helaina is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Helaina we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway.  You may just be the strongest candidate for this or other roles.  For more information, please contact careers@myhelaina.com.  

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