Sales Manager & Strategic Account Lead

Job Description

The Sales Manager & Strategic Account Lead is a pivotal leadership role combining people leadership, commercial execution, strategic account management, and customer engagement.

This role is responsible for building and developing a high-performing field team and for strengthening engagement across general practice, hospitals, pharmacies, and other relevant healthcare stakeholders and partners.

In parallel, the role serves as a strategic lead for Primary Care business and partnerships, with responsibility for improving patient care pathways through high-level stakeholder engagement, developing innovative partnerships, and driving customer segmentation and targeting excellence to optimize commercial execution and customer engagement.

The successful candidate will combine strong commercial capabilities with an entrepreneurial mindset, a passion for developing people, and the ability to translate strategy and customer insights into impactful execution.

Key Responsibilities:

Sales Team Leadership

• Build, lead, coach, and inspire a high-performing field team to achieve commercial objectives across hospital, general practice, pharmacy channels, and strategic partnerships.
• Set clear priorities, performance expectations, and development goals to support individual and team success.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous learning, innovation, and compliance.

Strategy Development and Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with the Business Unit Lead, Marketing, and other cross-functional colleagues to shape commercial strategies and co-create solutions.
• Ensure that field execution and account management support overarching business and brand objectives.
• Act as a strategic bridge between field execution, Marketing, Market Access, Medical Affairs, Business Intelligence, Analytics, and other relevant functions.

Customer Segmentation & Targeting Excellence

• Lead the development, implementation, and continuous optimization of customer segmentation and targeting models.
• Ensure segmentation insights drive customer engagement strategies, account prioritization, resource allocation, omnichannel execution, and field force effectiveness.
• Translate customer, market, and behavioral data into actionable engagement frameworks.

Strategic Primary Care Engagement

• Strengthen engagement within Primary Care by building strategic relationships with key healthcare stakeholders and decision-makers.
• Identify opportunities to optimize and improve patient care pathways.
• Represent the organization in relevant healthcare forums and stakeholder engagements.

Partnership & Business Development

• Provide strategic direction and leadership in developing innovative commercial partnerships and new ways of engaging healthcare and non-traditional stakeholders.
• Identify and assess new opportunities and collaboration models that can improve customer engagement, patient pathways, and access to appropriate healthcare interventions.
• Support the development of scalable business cases and commercial models, including implementation coaching.

Primary Tasks:

Sales & People Management

• Build and develop a strong field organization.
• Coach and develop team members to enable both individual and team success.
• Analyze territory data, customer engagement metrics, and market dynamics to optimize resource allocation, targeting, and commercial performance.
• Continuously refine customer segmentation and targeting models to optimize call planning, account prioritization, and customer engagement.

Strategic Commercial Alignment

• Collaborate with Marketing and cross-functional partners to provide field-based insights that shape go-to-market strategies.
• Drive adoption of segmentation-driven and omnichannel engagement approaches across the field organization.
• Ensure field execution remains closely aligned with business priorities.

Strategic Account Management

• Identify, map, prioritize, and engage critical stakeholders influencing Primary Care and patient pathways.
• Build strategic relationships with relevant healthcare decision-makers at local and regional levels.
• Identify friction points and opportunities within patient pathways and collaborate on solutions to improve patient outcomes.

Business Development & Partnerships

• Further develop strategic approaches to partnerships across traditional and non-traditional healthcare stakeholders.
• Prioritize partnership opportunities based on market insights, customer needs, and business potential.
• Support implementation of partnership models and commercial initiatives.

Qualifications & Competencies:

Education

• Master’s or Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Life Sciences, Public Health, or a related field.

Experience

• Strong experience from the pharmaceutical, healthcare, or another relevant commercial environment.
• Demonstrated ability to translate strategy into impactful execution.
• Previous people leadership or Sales Manager experience is preferred but not required.
• Experience in Key Account Management, strategic account management, commercial excellence, sales force effectiveness, customer engagement, or similar commercially focused roles is an advantage.
• Experience using customer segmentation, targeting, customer insights, and analytics to improve commercial execution is preferred.

Leadership & People Development

• A people-oriented leader who can inspire, coach, and develop others.
• Ability to lead through collaboration, influence, accountability, and a genuine desire to enable others to succeed.

Market Knowledge

• Strong understanding of the Danish healthcare environment and the interaction between Primary Care, pharmacies, scientific leaders, healthcare decision-makers, and other relevant stakeholders.

Commercial & Strategic Acumen

• Strong strategic and entrepreneurial mindset.
• Ability to translate customer needs, market dynamics, data, and commercial opportunities into clear priorities and effective execution.

Data & Customer Insights

• Strong interest in using data and customer insights to inform decision-making.
• Ability to apply segmentation, targeting, account prioritization, and resource allocation principles effectively.

Communication & Influence

• Excellent interpersonal and presentation skills.
• Ability to build trust, create alignment, and influence colleagues and external stakeholders across functions and organizational levels.

Language

• Native or fluent Danish and professional fluency in English, both written and spoken.

What We Offer:

• A high-impact leadership role with broad commercial and strategic responsibility.
• The opportunity to shape customer engagement, strategic partnerships, and patient pathway improvements.
• A dynamic, collaborative, and cross-functional working environment.
• Significant opportunity to influence business strategy and execution.
• A role with strong focus on leadership development, innovation, and commercial excellence.
• The chance to work with talented colleagues and external stakeholders to create meaningful impact for patients and healthcare systems.

Required Skills:

Preferred Skills:

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Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails. 

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