Trade Finance Sales Specialist -France & Benelux

Are you passionate about delivering innovative trade finance solutions? Do you thrive in a fast‑paced, client‑focused environment? We are looking for a dynamic Trade Finance Sales Specialist to join our TWC Sales Team within the International Corporate Bank and Global Transaction Banking. This role is key in driving business growth by acquiring new clients, deepening existing relationships, and maximizing the Bank’s earnings from trade finance and working capital solutions.

Key Responsibilities:

• New Business Growth: Drive new-to-Bank and new-to-trade business, expanding Barclays’ market share in trade finance.

• Client Relationship Management: Proactively support and strengthen relationships with existing clients, increasing their engagement with Barclays’ trade finance solutions.

• Collaboration Across Teams: Work closely with Corporate Coverage colleagues and internal product partners (Debt, Payments & Cash Management) to identify and capitalize on trade finance opportunities.

• Strategic Sales Planning: Develop and execute a business development strategy in partnership with Relationship Directors to drive client acquisition and revenue growth.

• Innovative Trade Solutions: Deliver tailored and sophisticated trade finance solutions, including Receivables Finance, Syndicated Deals, and ECA transactions, ensuring effective capital utilization and competitive pricing.

• Regulatory Compliance: Ensure all activities align with regulatory requirements, Barclays' Risk Management Framework, and internal policies.

Essential Skills/Basic Qualifications:

•    Strong selling and negotiation skills.

•   French language mandatory.

•    High quality written and verbal communication and presentation skills.

•   Excellent interpersonal skills.

•   Good understanding of relevant legal documentation.

Desirable skills/Preferred Qualifications:

• Commercial effectiveness, including client / customer focus and commerciality.

• Control environment, including risk management. 

•  Business skills, including delivering solutions and decision making. 

•  Personal and interpersonal skills, including communication, influence and collaboration.

•  Technical skills and knowledge across multiple products and innovations in the product area.

This role is based in Paris.

You may be assessed on key critical skills relevant for success in role, such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen, strategic thinking and digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills.

This role is deemed as a Controlled Function role under the Central Bank of Ireland Fitness and Probity Regulations and may require the role holder to hold mandatory regulatory qualifications or the minimum qualifications to meet internal company benchmarks.

Purpose of the role

To generate revenue and promote the bank's diverse Trade & Working Capital product and service offerings to various customer segments. 

Accountabilities

• Identification of potential customers, analysing their needs and preferences, and staying abreast of emerging market trends and competitor strategies.
• Creation of detailed profiles for target customer segments, outlining their requirements, needs, and pain points to tailor sales approaches and product recommendations.
• Relationship management of potential and existing customer relations through the execution of high-quality customer support, by responding to queries and resolving issues, gaining their customer trust, and understanding their financial goals and challenges.
• Understanding of the features, benefits, risks, and compliance requirements of various Trade & Working Capital products and services offered. Understanding of the key features, benefits, risks, enhancements, and regulatory requirements of new and existing banking products, and communicate insights clearly to potential customers to address their financial needs.
• Development of compelling sales pitches and proposals that showcase the value proposition of the bank's offerings to convert leads into customers, and negotiation of terms that are beneficial for both the client and the bank.
• Collection and analysis of customer feedback on various products, services, and overall experience, to support the development of reports that communicate key findings to relevant stakeholders, to inform product development and sales strategies.
• Monitoring of lead conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and other relevant metrics to assess sales performance and identify areas for improvement.

Vice President Expectations

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures.
• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements.
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.
• OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions.
• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
• Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
• Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.