Our client is a leading global solar energy service provider with a significant presence in world energy markets such as the U.S., Canada, Italy, Spain, India, Korea, China, and other countries. The company has more than 250 MW of installed solar PV generation capacity across more than 400 solar power plants worldwide. The company develops, finances and operates distributed generation solar power plants using proven photovoltaic technologies, delivering fully managed, predictably priced solar energy services for its commercial, government and utility customers. Our client company is a wholly owned subsidiary of an S&P 500 corporation and a premier manufacturer of silicon wafers for the solar and high technology industries.
Challenges:
The company has consistently been a pioneer in providing new, innovative solutions for both commercial and utility customers globally. Now the executive team requires an experienced industry executive who will create a well synergized global product strategy spanning all geographies. The company has created a new, highly visible role on the management team that will be responsible for developing and implementing the company’s three-year global product roadmap. To be successful, this Vice President, Global Product Marketing must possess a deep understanding of the worldwide utility markets as well as the nuances of each country’s and territory’s power, renewable energy and regulatory requirements. He or she will be responsible for developing the physical and financial products our client offers as well as services (O&M, monitoring, energy efficiency, demand response) attached to the solar systems.
Opportunity:
This individual will stamp our client’s global footprint across multiple strategic sectors and will identify opportunities and new prospective clients in emerging markets. This person will be an expert at collecting and analyzing key global market information and leveraging that knowledge to develop new products, customers, and effectively provide a sound business strategy to capitalize in these areas. This person must understand the nuances and differentiators associated with developing new, cutting edge solar solutions for the world’s global economy. The director will be responsible for managing a team of product experts within the company and must have sufficient technical skills to communicate the company’s capabilities to end users, partners, developers, the sales team, and other audiences.
Job Scope:
- Develop global strategy to identify potential customers as well as comprehensive solutions for end users.
- Leverage depth of global utility industry knowledge to determine the product strategy and positioning while monitoring industry developments closely and translating those into the overall product strategy.
- Collect and analyze market data from internal and external sources to produce quantitative analysis covering market size, growth rate, profitability, industry cost structures, distribution channels, market trends, competitor information, and key success factors.
- Analyze competitive product offerings, internalize market dynamics, prioritize customer needs and translate those into a tactical roadmap for the sales organization.
- Oversee the product management team in the collection, generation and exploitation of ideas for comprehensive product delivery.
- Ensure customer feedback is prioritized and incorporated into market and product requirements.
- Develop ongoing global marketing, positioning and communications strategy for utility customers and partners that differentiate product offerings.
- Work collaboratively across regulatory, marketing, and sales organizations to secure buy-in and resolve issues that impact product management, development, sales, support, and pricing.
- Manage annual budgeting and planning processes.
- Create and manage global cross functional product marketing teams.
Experience / Education Required:
- Minimum of fifteen (15) years of global product strategy development in highly competitive markets.
- Minimum of fifteen (15) years of strong business-to-business product marketing experience in all phases of bringing new products, solutions, and features to market, from conception to launch and ongoing improvement/iteration.
- Strong strategic thinking, problem solving, and analytical skills. Financial acumen is a must. Needs to be comfortable with the quantitative aspects of the business.
- MBA strongly preferred.
- Strong team orientation and the ability to work in a rapidly changing environment.
- Exceptional verbal and written communications skills, including experience with speaking engagements.
- Creativity in new ways of articulating value to users and differentiating the company against competitors.
- Comfortable working in a high growth environment with a strong entrepreneurial culture.
- International travel is required.
