In specialist industries, the job titles are getting more ambitious and the remits are getting more blurred. A technical sales leader is no longer just a seller with product knowledge. A general manager is no longer just running operations. And in a lot of businesses, those two worlds are colliding.
That is not a problem if the role is designed properly. It is a problem if the company has not really thought about what it needs. The result is a leadership hire that sounds strong on paper but does not quite fit the reality of the business.
Why this matters now
Specialist B2B businesses are under pressure to do more with fewer layers. Customers want faster answers, deeper expertise and better coordination across product, service, pricing and supply. That pushes leaders into hybrid territory.
Someone in technical sales may now need to influence margin, challenge product decisions and help steer account strategy. Someone in general management may need enough technical depth to make credible calls on investment, development and customer priorities.
That sounds efficient. It can also create confusion.
Where the role design gets messy
The biggest mistake is to hire for personality and hope the remit will sort itself out. It rarely does. If the business wants a strategic commercial operator, it should say so. If it wants a technically credible market-facing leader, it should say that too.
- Is the role about opening new markets or protecting existing ones?
- Does the person need deep technical authority or broad management experience?
- Will they lead people, process and P&L, or primarily customer and account growth?
- Do they need to be hands-on, or are they there to set direction?
Those questions sound obvious. They are still the questions most briefs fail to answer properly.
Why specialist sectors feel it most
In chemicals, industrials and adjacent markets, technical credibility matters because customers buy trust as much as output. But commercial reality matters too, because the wrong margin mix can wipe out the win.
So the best leaders are increasingly those who can sit between technical teams and customers without becoming lost in either. They can translate. They can prioritise. They can decide when a bespoke solution is worth the effort and when it is just a distraction.
That is a rare skill set, and it should be treated as such.
What hiring teams should do differently
If you are hiring across this line, start by defining the actual business problem. Is the business trying to accelerate growth, improve service, professionalise a region, or bring order to a messy structure? The answer changes the type of leader needed.
Then look for evidence that the candidate has operated in ambiguity before. The strongest hires in this space are usually not pure specialists or pure generalists. They are leaders who can bridge both without pretending one is the other.
That is the difference between a good fit and a title mismatch.
Final thought
The line between technical sales and general management is getting messier, not cleaner. That is fine, as long as the company is honest about what the role really is.
