Business Development Lead

Job Summary

The Business Development Lead, Additives serves as a strategic growth leader responsible for advancing Fortiva’s feed additive pipeline, market expansion priorities, and key customer partnerships. This role partners with Fortiva leadership and cross-functional stakeholders to help shape business strategy, define growth priorities, and translate market, customer, and technical insights into actionable commercial plans. The position develops product charters and business cases, evaluates partnership and market opportunities, and provides leadership with commercial insights to support project prioritization, investment decisions, and long‑term business growth.

The Business Development Lead, Additives serves as a strategic growth leader responsible for advancing Fortiva’s feed additive pipeline, market expansion priorities, and key customer partnerships. This role partners with Fortiva leadership and cross‑functional stakeholders to help shape business strategy, define growth priorities, and translate market, customer, and technical insights into actionable commercial plans. The position develops product charters and business cases, evaluates partnership and market opportunities, and provides leadership with commercial insights to support project prioritization, investment decisions, and long‑term business growth.

Working across Fortiva, Animal Nutrition, and the broader Land O’Lakes enterprise, this role builds and strengthens strategic customer, partner, and influencer relationships while managing high‑value strategic accounts, with primary emphasis on U.S. swine accounts. Through disciplined business development, direct sales leadership, project charter ownership, and enterprise collaboration, this position helps accelerate innovation, expand market reach, and deliver sustained sales growth.

• Influence and partner with Fortiva leadership in shaping business strategy, growth priorities, and market expansion opportunities for feed additive solutions.
• Own and grow a portfolio of B2B customers and influencers, including feed mills, premix partners, integrators, consulting nutritionists, and key opinion leaders.
• Develop business cases that demonstrate the commercial potential of new projects, partnerships, and market opportunities.
• Translate customer, market, competitive, regulatory, and technical insights into strategic recommendations, project charters, launch priorities, positioning, and execution plans.
• Lead commercial alignment across technical service, marketing, operations, supply chain, R&D, and sales teams to support strategic priorities and deliver on customer commitments.
• Establish and maintain relationships with academics, research organizations, industry partners, and other stakeholders to identify business, testing, insight, and innovation opportunities.
• Lead ideation, development, alignment, and initiation of project charters into the R&D pipeline workstream.
• Oversee project charters through the pipeline, ensuring resources, milestones, KPIs, and stakeholder alignment are in place to support successful execution.

• Identify, pursue, and close targeted direct‑sales opportunities for priority swine feed additive products and programs.
• Lead customer discovery, needs assessment, solution design, and value quantification using performance and economic assumptions appropriate to the customer’s system.
• Prepare and deliver customer proposals, coordinate order execution, support onboarding, and identify renewal or expansion opportunities.
• Manage high‑value strategic accounts and build trusted relationships with customers, influencers, and partners that support Fortiva’s long‑term growth objectives.

• Mentor and coach sales and account team members on feed additive value selling, technical‑to‑economic messaging, consultative selling, and disciplined opportunity management.
• Provide onboarding and ongoing training support related to product knowledge, competitive differentiation, objection handling, CRM discipline, and…