Technical Service Manager, Industrial Specialties Market

BASF is a leading global supplier of intermediates to various industrial manufacturing segments. They are seeking a Technical Service Manager to lead field technical market development for the industrial specialties segment, providing hands-on technical service and building relationships with customer R&D and technical teams.

Responsibilities:

• Leads field technical activities and serves as the primary technical contact for customer R&D, production, and technical teams. Resolves complex technical issues and provides application expertise and builds strong long-term technical relationships through proactive engagement and timely follow-up
• Builds and own the technical opportunity pipeline; leads customer technical projects guiding technical teams on application testing and troubleshooting to meet customer needs
• Identifies customer pain points and unmet needs; collaborate with R&D to modify or develop products and support new production introductions and commercialization
• Collaborate with commercial and marketing teams to support account managers by developing segment-specific value propositions, technical briefs, and application data that demonstrate customer benefits and enable formulation success
• Develop and maintain end market-specific technical sales collateral (presentations, technical selling stories, case studies, sales spotlight programs, and internal training) to enable sales across distribution, direct sales, and BASF internal transfer partners – to win business and achieve correct market technical positioning for the BASF portfolio
• Monitor market trends, raw material shifts, competitor activities, customer needs, and relevant regulatory changes; translate insights into actionable recommendations for segment strategies, product development, and portfolio positioning

Requirements:

• Hold a Bachelor's degree in chemistry, chemical engineering or a related scientific discipline, a MSc/PhD is a plus
• Bring minimum of 8 - 10 years of direct experience in formulating, conducting application work, and providing technical service in the fields of emulsification, dispersing, defoaming and rheology modification for industrial market segments of emulsion polymer latex synthesis, aqueous resin emulsions based coatings formulations, pulp, textile, chemical processing and manufacturing and water treatment using surfactants, water soluble polymers, chelates and acid based catalysts
• Have strong hands-on formulation and troubleshooting skill, with demonstrated ability to solve complex technical challenges across known and novel applications
• Possess strong interpersonal and communication skills, customer-oriented with a focus on delivering value and building long-lasing partnerships
• Have commercial awareness with the ability to translate technical benefits into customer value propositions and sales enablement tools
• Are willing to travel frequently to customer sites (jointly and independent of sales) - about 50-75% of the time