Vice President, Institutional Sales Europe

Employer: SPRINGER NATURE

Location: Dordrecht, Netherlands; Heidelberg, Germany; London, United Kingdom

Salary: Competitive

Closing date: 8 Apr 2025

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time

Sector: Media, Sales, Science, Publishing

Employee benefits & values: Accessibility & workplace adjustments, Core hour flexibility, Cycle to work scheme, Employee assistance programme, Enhanced maternity/paternity benefits, Enhanced pension, Health & wellness benefits, Hybrid working, Multi-faith support (observances and prayer), Professional development (CPD), Staff network groups (protected characteristics)

Job Title: Vice President, Institutional Sales Europe

Locations: London, Dordrecht or Heidelberg

Application Deadline: 30th April 2025

About Springer Nature Group

Springer Nature opens the doors to discovery for researchers, educators, clinicians, and other professionals. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms, and technology solutions reach millions of people. For over 180 years our brands and imprints have been a trusted source of knowledge to these communities and today, more than ever, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that fundamental knowledge can be found, verified, understood, and used by our communities - enabling them to improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow.

About the Role

The Vice President, Institutional Sales Europe is responsible for the development and execution of strategic sales plans to deliver revenue growth and high levels of customer service across the territory. The VP will lead and manage a large Institutional sales team in the sale of Springer Nature's Research products and services to Academic & Government institutions in the UK, DACH, and Northwest/Southwest Europe. Specific responsibilities include delivering the annual sales budgets approved by the Management Board and includes direct involvement in negotiations with key major national consortia and libraries leading the Open Access transformation in the region. The position is directly responsible for Directors and managers of the department and indirectly responsible for all employees within the department. This role reports directly to the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Springer Nature and serves as an integral member of the CCO leadership team with other key VP positions in Research Sales & Marketing.

Responsibilities

• Drive the commercial success of the region
• Develop and implement strategic plans for the growth of all Academic, Government Institutional sales in the UK, DACH, Northwestern Europe, and Southern Europe regions
• Deliver and exceed budgeted sales, revenue, and new business goals
• Build, develop and manage a best-in-class sales team capable of carrying out needed sales initiatives
• Manage key customer relationships effectively and participate in closing strategic opportunities, including major high-profile Transformative Agreements
• Represent senior sales management internally and out in the field via on-site sales calls and conferences, ensure great collaboration occurs with external organisations and partners to create mutually beneficial alliances.
• Identify and pursue strategic partnerships to enhance the market position
• In conjunction with marketing, drive revenue through effective marketing strategies and explore new revenue streams
• In collaboration with the commercial pricing team, develop business models and pricing strategies that align with market demands and company goals
• Develop ways to support the continued transition to Open Access and open science
• Analyse market and trends for future planning of Institutional sales
• Work with international editorial departments to maximise the sales potential of Springer Nature's intellectual property
• Work closely with the marketing function to establish successful support, channel, and partner programs

Leadership

• Provide inspirational leadership and guidance to the Institutional sales team
• Create a culture of trust, success, ongoing business and goal achievement
• Create an effective organisation through selection, training, compensation, engagement, development, performance and motivation of sales staff
• Review company and inter-departmental projects to establish possibilities for the inclusion or expansion of Institutional sales
• Analyse regional groups to find ways to increase synergies and efficiencies across teams
• Ensure that the strategic and tactical goals for your business are understood, owned and applied within your group and beyond.
• Attend and contribute within leadership team meetings to the development of strategic objectives and tactical goals for Research Sales and Marketing.
• Collaborate with the other leaders across RS&M and Springer Nature to create a culture that is mutually supportive with teams that work successfully together to best serve the needs of our external communities

Experience:

• Strong experience of leading, motivating, and developing commercial teams across multiple countries.
• Proven track record of managing large sales teams and exceeding sales goals, preferably in an Institutional Sales environment.
• Experience of complex negotiations and influencing towards successful outcomes is essential.
• Experience of working with Leadership teams and Executive teams
• Proven track record of working successfully within a complex global matrix environment is essential
• Experience of working within an international business highly recommended
• Previous experience working within the editorial/publishing industry including Open Access market dynamics
• Experience of managing change

Skills/Knowledge:

• Entrepreneurial mindset and approach
• Customer focused
• Strong commercial acumen, enterprise-wide mindset
• Strategic thinking
• Ability to develop and deliver tactical plans
• Effective negotiating and influencing skills, especially within a matrix environment
• Ability to effectively motivate a regionally diverse team
• Strengths in stakeholder management and interpersonal skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Accustomed to managing complexity
• Collaborative mindset and approach

• Fluent English-speaking skills essential to negotiate effectively in English language
• German language skills would be ideal
• Ability to communicate in other European languages (French, Spanish, Italian) would be beneficial

To apply for the position, please submit a CV and a cover letter outlining your key ambitions in the role.

At Springer Nature, we value the diversity of our teams and work to build an inclusive culture, where people are treated fairly and can bring their differences to work and thrive. We empower our colleagues and value their diverse perspectives as we strive to attract, nurture and develop the very best talent.

Springer Nature was awarded Diversity Team of the Year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Find out more about our DEI work here https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/taking-responsibility/diversity-equity-inclusion

If you have any access needs related to disability, neurodivergence or a chronic condition, please contact us so we can make all necessary accommodation.

Springer Nature is a Disability Confident Committed Employer and we encourage applications from candidates with disabilities. If you consider yourself to have a disability or learning difficulty and wish to submit your application in an alternative format or would like to discuss reasonable adjustments during the application and interview process, please get in touch by email SpringerNatureUKCareers@springernature.com so we can make any necessary arrangements.

For more information about career opportunities in Springer Nature please visit https://careers.springernature.com/

#LI-CE1

Job Posting End Date: 30-04-2025