Vice President of Sales, Marketing & Customer Experience

GWBD Operations is a privately owned holding company operating PRIER Products, Stern-Williams Products and FIAT Products—manufacturers of residential and commercial plumbing products serving the new construction, repair, and remodel markets. Across our brands, we BUILD with PURPOSE: delivering top-quality products that help PEOPLE, protect the PLANET, and make a PROFIT.

We are committed to operating under the will of God, helping people become all they are meant to be, providing rewarding careers, treating relationships with respect and professionalism, striving for excellence, and enjoying our work.

With over 140 years of heritage and a strong growth trajectory, we are seeking a high-impact commercial leader to accelerate profitable growth, strengthen customer partnerships, and convert market insight into winning new product opportunities across all three brands. This is an executive leadership opportunity for a builder—someone who creates winning strategies, leads teams to execute, and delivers measurable results.

Position Overview

Due to an upcoming retirement, we are looking to fill this role. Reporting directly to the President, this role leads GWBD’s growth engine across Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Business Intelligence, with full accountability for domestic and international expansion. This executive is accountable for company-wide revenue performance across all brands and channels, with a goal of delivering measurable progress toward 33% organic growth by 2028.

This executive serves as the face of GWBD and its brands in the marketplace and plays a critical role in accelerating growth through close partnership with Product Development—bringing customer insights, unmet needs, channel opportunities, and market intelligence into the new product pipeline across all three brands.

What Success Looks Like (First 18-24 Months)

• Establish and execute a clear path toward 33% organic growth by 2028, delivering measurable revenue and margin improvement across all brands.
• Expand commercial products through Engineering Specifications and wholesale channels; establish a scalable path for geographic expansion with near-term priority on accelerating PRIER’s Canadian market share.
• Strengthen relationships with top accounts, reps, and channel partners; establish GWBD as customers’ preferred supplier.
• Improve forecasting accuracy, pricing discipline, and business intelligence visibility across the commercial organization.
• Build a high-performing, accountable, growth-oriented commercial team with strong succession depth.
• Build a high-quality pipeline of market-driven new product opportunities; strengthen collaboration between Commercial and Product Development to improve new product success rates and speed to revenue.
• Maintain strong customer service while improving automation and operational efficiency.

Key Responsibilities

• Own company-wide sales performance across all brands, channels, and geographies.
• Develop and execute strategies that drive profitable growth, market share gains, and customer satisfaction.
• Lead pricing execution within management guidelines; improve pipeline visibility, forecasting accuracy, and sales accountability.
• Lead geographic market expansion strategy, including Canadian growth initiatives and identification of future international channel opportunities.

Customer & Market Leadership

• Serve as the face of GWBD and its brands; build executive-level relationships with top customers, distributors, reps, contractors, engineers, and channel partners.
• Personally engage strategic accounts and growth opportunities; represent the company at key trade shows, associations, and industry events.
• Identify emerging trends, competitive threats, and new market opportunities.
• Serve as the voice of the market by identifying unmet needs, customer frustrations, channel gaps, and emerging opportunities.
• Partner closely with Product Development to prioritize new product opportunities based on profitability, channel readiness, and manufacturing feasibility.
• Own the commercial side of the stage-gate process—including demand validation, volume forecasting, pricing strategy, and channel fit—and champion successful product commercialization through launch planning and go-to-market execution.

Marketing & Brand Development

• Assess and build the marketing organization with the structure, talent, and leadership needed to support GWBD’s growth ambitions.
• Define brand strategy, positioning, and messaging architecture across PRIER, FIAT, and Stern-Williams, ensuring each brand competes distinctly and effectively in its respective channels.
• Develop and execute an integrated marketing approach including digital presence, demand generation, trade programs, and distributor enablement.
• Support new product launches with coordinated go-to-market plans that accelerate time-to-revenue.
• Lead Customer Service with a focus on responsiveness, professionalism, and operational efficiency; modernize transactional processes through automation and continuous improvement.
• Lead Business Intelligence capabilities including dashboards, analytics, forecasting, customer profitability, and pricing insights to improve commercial decision-making.

Organizational Development

• Assess and optimize the commercial organization structure to support future growth, including evaluation of dedicated channel leadership roles.
• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team across Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and related functions.
• Build succession depth, accountability, and a culture of urgency and teamwork.

Manufacturing & Supply Chain Collaboration

• Partner with Operations and Supply Chain to develop accurate demand forecasts, enabling optimized capacity, reduced lead times, and minimized inventory risk.
• Translate GWBD service capabilities (e.g., PRIER’s 8-working-hour lead time standard, Stern-Williams’ ready-ship fountain programs) into customer-facing value propositions the commercial team actively sells.
• Collaborate on SKU rationalization, inventory strategy, and stocking decisions to balance customer availability with operational efficiency.
• Partner with the President and leadership team on company-wide strategy, long-term growth planning, and acquisition evaluation—assessing commercial synergies and integration risks to accelerate revenue post-close.
• Champion the company’s Mission, values, and culture internally and externally

Skills & Qualifications

Our Ideal Candidate

• Thinks and acts like an owner, not an employee.
• Is driven to win in the marketplace while building long-term relationships.
• Balances strategy and execution.
• Leads with humility, accountability, and integrity.
• Uses data and judgment to make sound decisions quickly.
• Builds people while building revenue.
• Brings executive presence, polish, urgency, and commercial instinct.

Must-Haves for This Role

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, or related field (MBA preferred).
• 10+ years of progressive commercial leadership experience.
• Demonstrated success leading multi-channel sales organizations with measurable growth results.
• Strong experience in B2B manufacturing, distribution, building products, or industrial channels.
• Experience leading teams across sales, marketing, and customer-facing functions.
• Excellent leadership, communication, negotiation, and organizational skills.

What Will Make You Stand Out

• Experience in plumbing, water, construction, or related product categories.
• Strong relationships in wholesale, retail, rep, or commercial channels.
• Experience leading multi-brand or multi-division commercial organizations.
• Proven success modernizing BI, forecasting, commercial systems, and AI.
• Experience integrating acquisitions or launching new growth channels.

Direct Reports

This leader oversees the full commercial organization across GWBD’s three brands, spanning National, Regional, and Canadian Sales Management, Marketing, Customer Service, and Business Intelligence. An early opportunity will be establishing stronger marketing leadership and evaluating whether dedicated retail channel leadership is warranted across all three brands.

Other Information

• Location: Kansas City (in-person role).
• Travel expected for customer visits, trade shows, acquisitions, and company operations.
• Compensation includes base salary plus performance-based incentives tied to growth and results.
• Benefits: Matching 401(k), Matching Onward Short-Term Savings Program, Medical, Dental, Vision & Life Insurance.