Head of Sales UK SME

Overview

As Head of Sales – UK SME, you will lead the UK SME sales function to deliver ambitious growth targets across new business acquisition and profitable revenue expansion. You will build, coach, and performance-manage a high-performing national team of B2B sales professionals, while working closely with Operations, Finance, Marketing and Customer Services to ensure seamless customer onboarding and mobilisation. This is a hands-on, visible leadership role, combining strategic direction with frontline sales execution, deal support, and rigorous performance management.

Key Accountabilities

Sales Leadership & Performance

• Lead, mentor and coach a national team of New Business-focused Business Development Managers and Sales Executives.
• Set clear performance expectations and KPIs aligned to revenue growth, margin, and activity targets.
• Build and sustain a high-performance, proactive sales culture with a strong bias toward new business win-rate and account expansion within the SME sector.
• Conduct regular performance reviews, pipeline inspections, and structured coaching sessions.
• Identify skills gaps and lead training and development initiatives to continuously raise capability across the team.

Sales Execution & Growth Delivery

• Own and drive the UK SME new business pipeline across defined regions, territories and target verticals.
• Maintain a highly visible, hands-on presence to support the team in closing high-value and complex deals.
• Lead and approve pricing models and P&Ls for larger or more complex SME opportunities, ensuring profitable growth aligned to business objectives.
• Identify and exploit market opportunities across core service lines including general waste, recycling, equipment, shredding, and hazardous waste.
• Ensure sales activity delivers both short-term wins and sustainable long-term customer value.

Opportunity & Pipeline Management

• Embed best-in-class CRM discipline across the SME sales function to ensure accurate, timely and value-driven data capture.
• Oversee prospecting, lead generation and pipeline management activity to support reliable forecasting and reporting.
• Ensure all sales activity is tracked and reported to inform commercial decision-making.
• Work closely with Telesales, Marketing and Tendering teams to align campaigns, bids and lead generation activity to SME growth objectives.

Collaboration, Mobilisation & Customer Handover

• Own and lead the end-to-end onboarding and mobilisation process for all new SME customer wins.
• Work cross-functionally with Operations, Finance, Customer Services and Commercial Support teams to ensure smooth, compliant and timely contract mobilisation.
• Lead and formally sign off all sales-to-account handovers, ensuring clarity of scope, service expectations and commercial terms.
• Support early-stage account management transition to protect revenue, margin and customer experience.

Key Requirements

Experience & Skills

• 5–8 years’ experience in B2B new business sales, with at least 2 years in a senior sales leadership role.
• Proven experience leading and managing managers (e.g. Regional Sales Managers) to deliver consistent performance.
• Demonstrated success in building, scaling and leading SME-focused sales teams.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to assess pricing, margin and deal profitability.
• Excellent negotiation, presentation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to translate high-level sales strategy into clear, executable tactical plans.
• Results-driven, resilient and hands-on leadership style.

Knowledge & Attributes

• Strong understanding of SME customer behaviour and buying cycles.
• Confident user of CRM systems and data-led sales performance tracking.
• Commercially astute with a strong grasp of pricing models and margin management.
• Willingness to travel nationally across the UK as required.
• Collaborative leadership style with the ability to influence cross-functional teams.

Qualifications

• Degree-level qualification in Business, Sales, Marketing or a related discipline (or equivalent experience).
• Experience within waste management, recycling, environmental services or a similar operationally complex sector is highly desirable.
• Knowledge of waste and environmental regulations is advantageous.
• High level of data literacy and comfort working with reporting and analytics tools.

About Panda: We are a waste management company focused on protecting people, supporting customers, and creating positive environmental impact. We value safety, innovation, and collaboration. We are committed to attracting a skilled and diverse workforce and to DE&I policies.