NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

NOTPLA

Notpla is a VC-backed, London start-up on a mission 'to make packaging disappear'. It is leading the way in developing biodegradable packaging materials, made from seaweed and plants, to produce a range of home-compostable products, and to reduce unnecessary plastic in the environment.

The company’s first product “Ooho” is a flexible packaging for liquids that biodegrades in 4-6 weeks - or it can even be eaten! - and has been used to distribute Lucozade at the London Marathon, to provide ‘edible cocktails’ at festivals, and to replace ketchup sachets for Just Eat. The company is just now launching its second product, a greaseproof and water-resistant coating for paperboard products such a take-away boxes, and continues to develop other packaging product alternatives, all of which will also be home compostable and biodegradable in nature.

Notpla is made up of a tight-knit team of highly talented, passionate people who are not afraid of doing things differently, and who are committed to putting an end to our plastic pollution problem. If you are ready for an opportunity to contribute to a world-changing solution and have a bit of fun along the way, then we want to hear from you.

JOB DESCRIPTION

We want to recruit somebody who shares our enthusiasm for sustainability, and who is excited about introducing our Ooho to a wider audience. While our technology, and our products more generally, have applications across multiple industries, for our Ooho we’re initially focussing on driving adoption in:

1. mass-participation sporting events (like marathons)
2. experiential drinks applications (bars, events etc.)

While both these broad segments are relatively dormant currently, we’re hopeful that we’ll see a return soon, so want to begin to prepare for their re-awakening now!

On the sports side our ambition is grow the race user base for the hydration products and manage several franchise relationships overseas to help them do the same. Whilst for the drinks market we want to increase the appearance for the Ooho drinks in bars and experiential applications. You will also be working on major brand partnerships across both segments – we’ve had many proactive approaches from multinational beverage and spirits brands before who are excited about the Ooho, and what it represents.

You will play a central role in building our go-to-market capabilities. Our product reach is small now, but we receive numerous enquiries and can be flexible in the commercial deals we put together for partnerships with each of those customers. The core part of your role will be driving interest and conversion on our standard range and managing growing franchise partners, but you’ll also have the opportunity to land the big fish with the offer of creating bespoke exclusivity and marketing deals.

This is an opportunity for someone who enjoys actively contributing—both to sales growth, as well as to the way in which that sales growth is achieved. And in that selling, you’ll be a part of pioneering the disruption of a conservative, established market—we want to make packaging interesting, and most impactfully, make it disappear!

Ideally, you’ll already have several years of experience in managing sophisticated relationships with product-oriented customers operating in the consumer world. Having a background in FMCG/CPG – either on the supplier or retailer side – would be beneficial, especially if you have worked in the beverage category. Alternatively, you may come from a hospitality/foodservice background, with experience across large scale operations. You may even have been a race organiser or managed bar operations previously and are looking to diversify your experience. Either way, you’ll be highly confident working in an autonomous setting, focusing predominantly on identifying brand-aligned target customers and pitching them successfully. You will be representing Notpla, and you’ll be selling products that are breaking new ground—for these reasons, we expect to hire people who are deeply engaged with what we’re doing, who are highly professional, and who can grasp why we’re different and are able to clearly share that with prospective customers. Importantly though, you’ll also want to belong to a team that’s committed to addressing society’s plastics problem.

Overview of main responsibilities:

• Driving sales of Ooho water to UK mass participation sporting events and managing relationships with customers and sales agents for drinks and franchisees for sports.
• Extensive sales calls and emails with prospective customers
• Sorting and responding to inbound emails and enquiries
• Managing new client onboarding, including product usage training
• Preparing product sampling where relevant
• Ongoing collection of customer feedback on products and sales processes
• Contributing to our social media content strategy, and supporting with relevant aspects of community management (online activity)
• Developing novel commercial structures to work with large brands.

Requirements:

• Passionate about sustainability, the environment and reducing plastic!
• Great people and communication skills – naturally at ease in unfamiliar settings
• Loves selling. Period.
• Excellent command of the English language
• Highly practical and likes to get stuff done
• Good operational mindset
• Proactive attitude
• Approachable and a team player
• Past sales/marketing or customer support experience
• Comfortable working in a fast paced, start-up environment
• Good time management and comfortable working with tight schedules
• Able to take constructive feedback

Nice to have:

• Past experience in sporting event organisation or events / bar operations.
• Confidence in utilising Google Suite products, and Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint

Location: London – Mix of working from home due to COVID and in the office in Hackney Wick, and across client locations when restrictions are lifted.