Account Executive

Are you an experienced scientific sales professional with a track record of generating new business and closing technical sales opportunities? Have you successfully sold services, instrumentation, consumables or technical solutions into R&D, formulation, product development or scientific teams?

Our client is a highly respected and rapidly growing specialist testing laboratory that helps some of the world's leading manufacturers solve complex product development and formulation challenges. Working across industries including Food & Beverage, Life Sciences, Personal Care and Advanced Materials, they provide expert rheology, interfacial science and materials characterisation services that help customers understand why products behave the way they do and how they can be improved.

Due to continued growth, they are now looking to recruit an Account Executive to take ownership of their Food & Drink commercial activities. This is an excellent opportunity to inherit an established account base and active pipeline whilst developing a significant amount of new business.

The role offers a genuine opportunity to help build and shape a growing business unit, with the potential to lead and develop the division in the future.

The Role

The successful candidate will inherit existing customer accounts and an active pipeline from day one, whilst being responsible for developing and growing new business opportunities across the Food & Drink sector. You will engage with R&D teams, formulation scientists, technical managers, process engineers and product developers, identifying challenges and converting these into commercially successful testing projects. Working closely with an experienced technical team, you will take a consultative sales approach, helping customers understand how specialist testing programmes can solve product performance, processing and formulation issues. You will be responsible for building and maintaining your own sales pipeline, identifying new opportunities and generating business through proactive outreach and account development activities. You will manage accounts through the full sales cycle including lead generation, customer meetings, proposal preparation, quotation management and project close. The role will involve regular customer visits, attendance at industry exhibitions and conferences across the UK, with occasional European travel. You will maintain CRM accuracy, participate in pipeline reviews and contribute to wider commercial strategy alongside the sales leadership team. This is a hands-on commercial role within a growing specialist SME where successful individuals will enjoy significant autonomy and direct access to key business decision makers.