Commercial Manager recruitment
Commercial Manager recruitment for businesses growing revenue but losing margin.
Plenty of businesses grow turnover and lose money doing it. Discounts are given to close orders, contract terms are accepted without challenge, channel agreements drift, and nobody owns the commercial mechanics that decide whether growth is profitable.
Commercial Manager recruitment for manufacturing, engineering and project-driven B2B businesses.
Why this appointment is difficult
A Commercial Manager owns the commercial quality of revenue: pricing structure, margin protection, contract terms, channel and distributor agreements, quotation discipline and commercial risk. The role is right when a business is winning work but the profitability, terms or risk profile of that work is not properly controlled — a different problem from needing more sales activity.
Commercial Manager is one of the least consistently defined titles in B2B. In one business it is a contracts and margin role, in another it is effectively a Head of Sales, in a third it is a project-commercial role closer to quantity surveying. A search that does not settle this first produces a shortlist of people who have all held the title and done entirely different jobs.
We start by establishing what the appointment must actually protect or improve: quoted margin, realised margin, contract exposure, channel terms, pricing consistency between regions, or the commercial governance around large projects.
Candidates are then assessed against that specific task — what they changed, what it was worth, and how they carried sales colleagues with them rather than becoming the department that says no.
When businesses need a Commercial Manager
Revenue is growing and margin is falling
Discounting has become the default way to close, and nobody is measuring what it costs across the year.
Contracts are signed without commercial challenge
Liability, payment terms, retentions and variations are accepted as presented, and the risk surfaces later.
Channel and distributor terms have drifted
Different partners hold different terms for historic reasons nobody can now justify or defend.
Pricing is inconsistent across markets
The same product sells at materially different prices across territories or channels, and customers have noticed.
What the role does in practice
Pricing structure and governance
How prices are set, who can discount and by how much, and how that is reviewed rather than assumed.
Margin protection
Quoted versus realised margin, the cost of discounting, and the commercial levers that recover it.
Contracts and terms
Negotiating and improving the terms the business sells on, and understanding the risk it is accepting.
Channel and partner agreements
Distributor, agent and reseller agreements that are consistent, defensible and aligned with the route to market.
Commercial analysis
Which customers, products and territories genuinely make money, and which are being carried.
Working with sales, not against it
Commercial discipline that the sales team can sell within, rather than a governance layer they route around.
What the wrong appointment costs
The salary is rarely the largest number. The expensive part is the commercial time a market-entry programme loses while an appointment that was never going to work runs its course.
Risk 1
Growth that consumes cash and produces no profit, hidden until the year-end accounts.
Risk 2
Contract exposure accepted years earlier, discovered when a project goes wrong.
Risk 3
Channel terms that cannot be corrected without damaging partner relationships.
Risk 4
A governance appointment the sales team works around, which achieves nothing but friction.
Risk 5
Pricing decisions that remain personal and undocumented, and leave with whoever made them.
Decision support
Commercial Manager, Sales Director or Head of Sales?
Three senior commercial appointments that are regularly confused. They solve different problems.
| Owns | Right when | |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial Manager | Pricing, margin, contracts, terms, channel agreements and commercial governance | Revenue is growing but profitability, risk or pricing discipline is not under control |
| Head of Sales | The sales team: activity, pipeline, coaching, conversion | There is a team in place and the constraint is performance |
| Sales Director | Commercial strategy, structure and market direction | The direction of the commercial function itself needs setting |
How a Commercial Manager search is run
01
Commercial briefing
The business, the market or territory, the route to market, the customers, the products, the realistic first-two-year objectives and the internal support the person will have.
02
Role definition
A role built around the commercial task: accountabilities, territory or team, targets, reporting line, tools and the profile that can genuinely deliver it.
03
Search and approach
Targeted identification within the relevant sectors and market, approached directly and discreetly on the strength of the commercial opportunity.
04
Commercial assessment
Structured assessment against the commercial plan — how the candidate would actually grow the business or territory, and whether their evidence supports it.
05
Shortlist and interview support
A shortlist with honest commentary, plus help running interviews that test commercial capability rather than interview technique.
06
Appointment and first-year structure
Support with offer, onboarding and the commercial plan the new appointment works to from day one.
What we need to understand before starting
The market being entered or developed, and how far the entry has already progressed.
The intended route to market: direct, distribution, agents, specification-led or a combination.
The products, their technical complexity and who has to be convinced to buy them.
What the role must achieve commercially in its first year and its first three years.
The internal support available: marketing, technical, logistics, pricing authority and leadership time.
The realistic package, including how it compares with the local market for that role.
Language requirements, travel expectations and where the person will be based.
Whether a permanent appointment is genuinely the right first commitment.
Common questions
No, though some businesses use the titles that way. A Head of Sales leads the selling. A Commercial Manager owns the terms the business sells on — pricing, margin, contracts and channel agreements. Being explicit about which you need is the single most useful thing to settle before a search starts.
Usually alongside, reporting to a Managing Director or Sales Director, with clear authority over pricing governance. Commercial discipline imposed from outside the commercial function tends to be ignored; discipline with no independence tends to be overruled.
Where the role is genuinely commercial — margin, contracts, terms and channel — yes. Pure quantity surveying and estimating appointments sit outside what we do, though we will say so rather than take the brief.
It can, and for some project-driven manufacturers it is the right first appointment: the business does not need more enquiries, it needs the work it already wins to be profitable.
Yes, and often sharply. Pricing consistency, distributor terms and contract exposure across several territories is a standard weakness in businesses that have expanded market by market without commercial governance.
Related capabilities
The wider recruitment capability and the other commercial roles market entry usually requires.
Assess the market and establish the route to market the appointment will operate through.
Senior commercial leadership for an agreed number of days a week where a permanent appointment is not yet justified.
Salary bands, hiring timelines and role structures for international commercial appointments.
The digital commercial infrastructure a new appointment needs behind them in the territory.
Recruiting a Commercial Manager?
Tell us where margin is leaking — pricing, contracts, channel terms or quotation discipline. We will tell you what the role has to own to fix it.