Key Account Manager - Defense

With over 80 years as an industrial technology leader, Kennametal Inc. delivers productivity to customers through materials science, tooling and wear-resistant solutions. Customers across aerospace, earthworks, energy, general engineering and transportation turn to Kennametal to help them manufacture with precision and efficiency. Every day approximately 10,000 employees are helping customers in more than 60 countries stay competitive. Kennametal generated nearly $2.4 billion in revenues in fiscal 2019.

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Kennametal is continuing to expand its Defense portfolio, so we are actively pursuing a highly motivated global sales professional to join our team who will have primary responsibility to identify opportunities in the global defense market focused around Armor Penetration, Ammunition, Fragments with an ability to partner with requirement creators, develop long-term relationships with integrators and execute on our Defense portfolio sales initiatives.

This position is responsible for identifying, developing, and closing new sales opportunities including contracts, discount structure and/or marketing programs. Serves as a primary interface for all Defense products, strategy, programs, support, marketing, and training for key customers.

• Build solid customer relationships with strategic large accounts typically involving complex global customers and multi-national enterprises.
• Create demand for the organization’s products and services by raising the Kennametal profile with customers.
• Lead regular status and strategy meetings with the customer’s senior management team to align products/services with customer needs.
• Address customer action items and concerns within a timely manner.
• Develop strategy, sales plans, budgets to achieve sales goals with Key Accounts.
• Identify new sales opportunities for growth within assigned accounts.
• Gather key customer input for new product development and communicate to product management team.
• Support new product development programs through identification of field trial sites and actively solicit key account customer feedback to support product launch and value proposition development.
• Partner with regional segment team members who gather business intelligence and business trends to set strategy and create demand for organizations products & services.
• Support enterprise selling and global account initiatives and manage contacts and price harmonization.
• Utilize customer relationship management (CRM) tools to document and manage customer activity.
• Complete required sales training modules (CRM, large account management, etc.).

• Bachelor of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Engineering, or related field preferred, MBA preferred.
• 8-10 Years in related industries or materials.
• 2-4 years of sales experience preferred.
• Previous military or law enforcement experience.
• Able to achieve secret level US DoD clearance.
• Knowledge of connected industries or solutions including specialty markets (armor plating, body armor, vehicle protection systems).
• Ability to create demand through insight, influencing, planning & organizing.
• Self-starter and self-sufficient requiring little supervision for decision making, account planning and advancing sales discussions.
• Excellent interpersonal skills including active listening and building trusting relationships.
• Excellent business sense and decision-making skills leveraging data and strategic thinking.
• Completion of structured selling courses / training program preferred.

• Subject matter expert of KMT Inc and/or industrial consumables industry preferred.
• Data-driven, focused on results driven by strategy, thriving in a fast-paced fast growth organization.
• Demonstrable success as a leader, able to attract and recruit top sales talent, is adept at coaching and getting the best out of the team.
• Deep understanding of both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of a successful sales…