Business Development Manager Automotive

About this Position

At Henkel, you’ll be part of an organization that’s shaping the future through innovation, sustainability and collaboration. With our trusted brands like Persil®, ‘all®, Loctite®, Snuggle®, and Schwarzkopf® and our cutting‑edge technologies, you’ll have countless opportunities to explore new paths and grow.

This position is with our Adhesive Technologies business unit – where we empower our people to transform industries and provide our customers with a competitive advantage through adhesives, sealants and functional coatings.

Dare to learn new skills, advance in your career and make an impact at Henkel.

Core Responsibilities:

• Growth Strategy & Opportunity Identification:
  Identify new revenue streams, applications, platforms, or markets aligned with company strategy. Develop account and market growth plans with clear value propositions. Track industry trends, customer roadmaps, and competitive activity to anticipate demand. Translate customer pain points into scalable business opportunities
• Customer & Partner Engagement:
  Build and maintain senior‑level relationships with customers and strategic partners. Serve as a trusted commercial and technical advisor, not just a seller. Lead value‑based conversations focused on total cost, performance, and long‑term partnership. Manage complex, multi‑stakeholder customer environments (Purchasing, Engineering, Operations)
• Commercial Leadership & Negotiation:
  Own commercial strategy for new business awards and major expansions. Lead pricing, contracts, and negotiations in collaboration with sales, legal, and finance. Ensure opportunities meet margin, ROI, and risk thresholds. Drive alignment between customer expectations and internal profitability targets
• Cross‑Functional
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Work closely with Sales, Key Account Management, R&D, Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, and Finance. Translate market needs into technical and operational requirements. Champion internal resources to accelerate opportunity conversion. Ensure smooth handoff from development to execution / account management
• Pipeline & Business Case Management:
  Build and manage a robust opportunity pipeline (short, mid, and long‑term). Develop business cases, investment justifications, and financial models. Track progress from ideation → RFQ → award → launch. Provide regular updates to leadership with clear risks, actions, and upside.
• Execution Support & Launch Readiness:
  Support critical phases of customer launches, especially for new technologies or platforms. Anticipate and mitigate technical, operational, or commercial risks. Ensure alignment on specs, volumes, timing, and contingency plans. Maintain customer confidence through disciplined follow‑up and issue resolution.

• B.S. in Chemical Engineering preferred. Open to any technical degree
• Strategic thinking with strong commercial acumen
• Executive‑level communication and influencing skills
• Negotiation and value selling expertise
• Ability to lead without direct authority
• Financial literacy (ROI, margin, investment trade‑offs)
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and complex matrix organizations
• Able and willing to travel upwards of 50% to a maximum of 70%. Travel will be both domestic and to include Canada

This is a hybrid role and selected candidate will be expected to be in the Madison Heights office 3 days per week unless traveling to customer sites, Henkel sites or at business events.

• Health Insurance: affordable plans for medical, dental, vision and wellbeing starting on day 1
• Work-Life Balance: Paid time off including sick, vacation, holiday and volunteer time, flexible & hybrid work policies (depending on role), and vacation buy / sell program
• Financial: 401k matching, employee share plan with voluntary investment and Henkel matching shares, annual performance bonus, service awards and student loan reimbursement
• Family Support: 12-week gender neutral parental leave (up to 20 weeks for parents giving birth), fertility support, adoption & surrogacy reimbursement, discounted child and elderly care, and scholarships
• Career Growth: diverse national and international growth…