Product Business Development Mgr

The Job Responsibilities

The Product Business Development Manager is responsible for driving profitable growth, market share expansion, and commercial excellence for the company’s fixed fire and gas detection portfolio across North America. This portfolio includes fixed gas detectors, flame detectors, controllers, visualization tools, engineered systems, connected solutions, software-enabled services, and associated life safety equipment used in industrial, commercial, municipal, marine, energy, and process safety applications. 

This role serves as the regional portfolio champion and commercial subject matter expert, connecting customer needs, market trends, competitive intelligence, regulatory requirements, and global product strategy into actionable growth plans. The position partners closely with sales, marketing, service, engineering, product management, channel partners, systems teams, and global business units to position the company as a leading provider of complete fixed fire and gas detection solutions. 

• Own the regional business development strategy for fixed fire and gas detection products, controllers, engineered systems, connected products, software solutions, and associated life safety equipment. 

• Develop and execute North American growth plans aligned with global portfolio strategy, regional sales targets, margin objectives, and market share goals. 

• Identify, evaluate, and prioritize growth opportunities across key segments, including oil and gas, petrochemical, chemical, power generation, water and wastewater, marine, semiconductor, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, industrial manufacturing, commercial refrigeration, and municipal applications. 

• Serve as the product and application expert for internal teams, channel partners, representatives, system integrators, EPCs, engineering firms, and strategic customers. 

• Support complex customer opportunities by helping define application requirements, hazard scenarios, detector technology fit, system architecture, compliance needs, competitive positioning, and commercial value. 

• Lead portfolio analysis, gap assessments, lifecycle reviews, pricing recommendations, product rationalization, and business case development for new or improved solutions. 

• Collect and translate voice-of-customer feedback, field input, win/loss insights, market trends, and competitive intelligence into actionable recommendations for regional and global stakeholders. 

• Partner with marketing to develop value propositions, messaging, launch plans, sales campaigns, application guides, competitive comparison tools, total cost of ownership models, training materials, and customer-facing collateral. 

• Coordinate product launches and commercialization activities, including positioning, pricing, training, sales enablement, forecast alignment, inventory readiness, technical documentation, and post-launch performance tracking. 

• Monitor relevant standards, approvals, certifications, and regulatory drivers that influence fixed fire and gas detection specifications, including NFPA, FM, UL, ISA, IECEx, ATEX, marine certifications, hazardous-location requirements, and customer-specific safety standards. 

• Support sales teams during customer discovery, specification review, bid strategy, technical presentations, proposal development, and negotiations for strategic opportunities. 

• Collaborate with service, systems, and technical support teams to improve post-sales support, commissioning readiness, service offerings, training programs, and lifecycle customer satisfaction. 

Additional Role Responsibilities

• Ability to understand industrial hazard scenarios involving combustible gases, toxic gases, oxygen deficiency or enrichment, flame detection, fire detection, alarm response, shutdown logic, ventilation, and integration with plant control or safety systems. 
• Working knowledge of detector technologies such as electrochemical, catalytic bead, infrared point detection, open-path infrared, ultrasonic gas leak detection, optical gas imaging, UV/IR flame detection, multi-spectrum IR flame detection, and controller-based system architecture. 

• Ability to engage in consultative conversations with customers regarding safety outcomes, uptime, compliance, lifecycle cost, installation complexity, maintenance requirements, and system reliability. 

• Understanding of go-to-market models that may include direct sales, distribution, manufacturer representatives, systems integrators, EPCs, engineering consultants, and global account engagement. 

• Ability to influence cross-functional teams without direct authority and align regional needs with global product management, engineering, supply chain, marketing, service, and sales leadership. 

Your Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, engineering, industrial technology, electronics, safety, or a related field required; equivalent combination of education and relevant experience may be considered. 

• Five or more years of experience in product management, product marketing, business development, technical sales, application engineering, or commercial leadership in a B2B industrial environment preferred. 

• Experience with fixed fire and gas detection, industrial safety, process automation, instrumentation, controls, life safety systems, hazardous-area equipment, or engineered technical solutions strongly preferred. 

• Demonstrated ability to build business cases, analyze markets, develop growth plans, interpret competitive dynamics, and convert technical capabilities into customer-focused value propositions. 

• Strong presentation, communication, training, and facilitation skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences. 

• Strong analytical, project management, planning, and execution skills, including the ability to manage multiple priorities across sales, marketing, product, service, and global stakeholder groups. 

• Comfortable supporting customer meetings, site visits, trade shows, product demonstrations, training events, and internal strategy reviews. 

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications, CRM tools, sales reporting systems, and basic financial analysis; experience with product dashboards, market models, or business intelligence tools preferred. 

• Ability to travel up to 30% by air and car. 

• Ability to lift, move, or demonstrate equipment weighing up to 25 pounds. 

Preferred Competencies

• Strategic thinking with the ability to translate market opportunities into practical commercial actions. 

• Technical curiosity and credibility when discussing industrial safety, detection technologies, controllers, system integration, and application-specific requirements. 

• Customer-focused mindset with strong discovery skills and the ability to uncover risk, compliance, operational, and economic drivers. 

• Commercial discipline, including pricing awareness, margin focus, pipeline management, forecast alignment, and measurable execution. 
• Collaborative leadership style that builds trust across sales, marketing, service, engineering, global product teams, and channel partners. 

What Success Looks Like 

• Increased regional revenue, profitability, and market share for the assigned fixed fire and gas detection portfolio. 

• Improved sales confidence through effective training, tools, messaging, application guidance, and competitive positioning. 

• Stronger alignment between customer needs, regional market requirements, and global product strategy. 

• More consistent support for strategic opportunities, engineered system projects, channel partners, and key customer engagements. 

The compensation includes a base salary range of $106,000 - $135,000 with an annual performance bonus (percentage of base).