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Welcome to Tomorrow

We believe that effective leaders don't simply seek "jobs"; they seek organizations with a compelling story, exceptional colleagues, and room for continued growth. As you scroll through this page, you will gain a better understanding of Pentair's narrative, where the company has been, and where it is going.

General Manager (Commercial Water Solutions)

Pentair

Pentair is one of the world's leading global producers of end-to-end Water Treatment, Water Filtration, and Water Sustainability solutions.  Following its official start in 1966, Pentair's first few decades of history were decorated in ups and downs as the company entered and exited varying industries including research balloons, paper production, power tools (Delta/Porter Cable), enclosures, and electrical solutions, seemingly searching for its mainstay identity.  This dynamic changed in 2004 when Pentair officially entered the Water Solutions space via a strategic acquisition of Wicor Industries.  The next 20 years of Pentair's history have been earmarked by successes in growing into one of the most powerful Water Solutions companies across the globe.  In 2018, the final non-water business of Pentair's was divested, leaving room for continued laser-focus and investment in growth across end-to-end Water Solutions.  Pentair's executive team is seeking the next Commercial Water Solution business unit General Manager who will oversee a very healthy ~$250M P&L, $150M in North America, while leveraging the power of hundreds of business unit employees and Pentair's enterprise resources to drive an expansion of this critical category. The GM will have the opportunity to lead across complex product lines and different market segments.  This leadership role is a highly visible component of Pentair's executive succession ladder as the company looks to grow by identifying talented senior leaders from the outside, and providing continued career growth opportunities into senior executive leadership.

A Foundation you can build on

Getting a sense of the foundation that has been built prior to your arrival offers a lens through which you can see where your career may go.

Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions

Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions business unit is a leading manufacturer and distributor of high-quality water softening, water filtration, commercial ice machine, and related products for both residential and commercial customers. With a rich history the company has established itself as a leader in the water solutions industry, notably in filtration and ice-making, through a relentless focus on innovation, quality, and customer service. They operate as a global water treatment company in more than 25 countries and are a preferred choice for individuals and businesses looking for high-quality water filtration & ice solutions.

History

In 1966, Pentair was founded by five individuals in St. Paul, Minnesota, with the name stemming from "penta" for the founders and "air" for their intended products. The company initially diversified across various industries, including paper mills, before evolving into a tool and eventually a water company. Throughout its history, Pentair has emphasized growth, profitability, and its commitment to creating a better world through innovative water solutions. In recent years, it has expanded its sustainability efforts and broadened its portfolio through strategic acquisitions.

The Commercial Water Solutions Industry

Over the past six decades, Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions business has built a strong brand reputation and has become the preferred choice for residential and commercial customers looking for high-quality water treatment solutions. Pentair's commercial water solutions are tailored to meet businesses specific needs, ensuring their customers enjoy clear, refreshing water that's expertly managed. With high-performing solutions, customers can have peace of mind knowing they work diligently to reduce maintenance requirements and boost profitability. From residential and commercial water solutions, to industrial water management and everything in between, Pentair is focused on smart, sustainable water solutions that help our planet and people thrive. Their thriving water product lines include water softening systems, water filtration systems, shower filters, UV systems, undersink and countertop water filtration systems and more.

Scale

Pentair is an industry leader in end to end Commercial Water Solutions. The firm leads the industry in delivering high quality and exceptional customer service. In their recent Q2 2023 earnings report, Pentair at large proudly achieved $1.1B in sales, with the Water Solutions division specifically being highlighted given that sales were up 51 percent from last year. Pentair has a stable foundation with immense opportunity for growth in marketshare ahead, particularly globally. With an extensive cross functional team of employees, Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions has a global customer base of thousands of businesses.

Our Take On Pentair's Values

Prideful

Pentair's leadership and employee engagement stems from a sense of pridefulness of being a part of a premium brand, owning market share in the United States within the industry vertical. Holistically, the firm embodies a proud culture devoted to creating quality products, offering exceptional customer experiences, and driving innovation for future expansion.

Community

Pentair leads with a community orientation in business. Serving communities across the country, as well as having a sense of ownership and responsibility to driving the firm's business forward, the teams operate with immense dedication and partnership internally. The culture provides a sense of humility to support those around them in significant ways.

Collaboration & Capability

Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions business has an overall very capable leadership team that believes in hiring talented people and fostering a highly collaborative environment for teams to thrive in this business.

What You Will Be A Part Of

As a leader at Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions business, you will position the organization for its future, which requires an understanding of those around you, what they collectively stand for, and how they positively impact the world.

PRODUCT INNOVATION = VENDOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

Affordable, quality products. Manitowoc Ice wins business from continued support, product innovation, and exceptional service provided to customers. Integrity, committment to stakeholders, excellence - values the company holds dear.

WATER FILTRATION - KEY FOR PENTAIRS COFFEE CUSTOMERS
Hear directly from one of Pentair's Commercial Water Solution customers on National Coffee Day about why their high quality water filtration systems makes a huge difference to coffee businesses.
THE IMPACT OF WATER
Check out this marketing video that highlights the impact Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions makes on millions of lives.
RECENT FILTRATION SOLUTION INSTALLATION HIGHLIGHT
Check out this recent installation of Pentair's Beer Membrane Filtration Solution for a large German brewery. The entire process was completed in just 25 days resulting in a significant increase in filtration capacity.
AN EMPHASIS ON SUSTAINABILITY & CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
Learn more from this video along with a deeper look through the "Impact" section on their website about the emphasis Pentair places on sustainability and making a positive environmental impact around the world.
OVER 80 YEARS OF WATER SOLUTIONS
Watch this video created by Pentair's marketing team to get a sense for the products driving such successful growth within Pentair's Water Solutions business and the impact they've been having on customers for over 80 years.

The Company You’ll Keep

Who you’ll work with is often more important than the work itself. Get to know the Pentair leadership team you will be engaging with in this role.

Bo Erickson

Group President - Commercial Water Solutions

Bo Erickson is a seasoned business professional with over 15 years of experience in driving the growth of profitable business segments. As the Group President of Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions and previously serving as President of Manitowoc Ice, Bo has dedicated the past 12 years to cultivating mutually beneficial relationships and expanding profitable business within the foodservice industry. He has achieved this through collaborative distribution, channel partnerships, and extensive connections with key players in the top 50 Chain restaurants of the food-service segment. Bo's responsibilities as Group President of Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions encompass leading three multi-million dollar business units, overseeing Commercial Ice, Filtration, and Service teams across multiple global facilities. Known for his proactive approach and problem-solving abilities, he thrives on the challenges of growing dynamic businesses and has consistently achieved year-over-year growth since 2009. Colleagues would describe him as a go-to professional who excels in execution, remains calm under pressure, and prioritizes teamwork and results over personal recognition. Bo welcomes the opportunity to make new professional connections and believes that success is achieved through relationships and collaborative strategies. 

Nicki Lertiz

CHRO - Water Solutions Segment

Aaron Brix

Group Marketing Leader - Commercial Water Solutions

Greg Ebel

VP Global Sales and Distribution

John Myers

Director of Engineering

Gina Passage (Johnson)

Finance Director and Group CFO

Kyle Gress

Group Integrated Supply Chain Leader

Tanya Hooper

EVP and CHRO

Adrian Chiu

EVP and President, Water Solutions at Pentair

A Day in the Life

The General Manager for a critical segment of Pentair's Commercial Water Solutions business will lead a high-performance team that thrives on developing and launching impactful, leading products and services for commercial customers. This individual will lead a growth-focused global product portfolio with over $250 million in annual sales, with a goal to hit the $300 million mark in the near future. The General Manager will develop and drive the overall growth and profitability strategy for the complex filtration product categories through a cross-functional direct report team of Product, Sales, and Service leaders as well as matrixed leaders from Operations, Technology, Finance and Marketing.

As the General Manager within the Pentair portfolio, this leader will work cross functionally across the matrixed leadership team driving business growth. This leader will oversee product, product strategy, and commercialization, with sales, and marketing oversight. The GM will have the opportunity to influence and work through all matrixes and functions to ultimately impact the $375 million P&L they own.

This GM will need to be highly execution focused, relational, innovative, and strategic as they are responsible for making Pentair's Commercial Water Solution growth goals a reality through excellent leadership over the product lines in their perview.  This GM will report directly to the Group President, Bo Erickson, and will be a critical component to Pentair's senior leadership team.

Responsibilities

  • Develops and drives strategy and translates business direction into global product portfolio decisions for the entire category. 
  • Takes a broad perspective on the overall goals and performance of the category incorporating all aspects of the business including Sales, Operations, Marketing, Technology, Financial, Human Resources, Compliance, and others. 
  • Responsible for meeting or exceeding P&L targets (i.e., sales, standard margin).
  • Aligns, inspires, and develops teams across functional and geographic boundaries. 
  • Ensures customer perspective and end-user needs are a driving force behind strategic priorities, business decisions, product and service innovation and organizational processes. 
  • Utilizes data to diagnose business strengths and weaknesses and identify the implications for potential strategies and to increase financial performance and growth.
  • Provides oversight to all product portfolio strategic initiatives (e.g., branding, NPD, portfolio optimization, channel expansion).

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  • Partners with Technology and Program Management to lead cross-functional NPD and VAVE execution.
  • Integrates profit and revenue considerations into business and operational decisions and allocates appropriate resources by making trade-offs while maintaining a focus on achieving goals and profitability targets.
  • Develops pricing strategies and tactics through effective interpretation of market dynamics, customer insights, and profitability analytics.
  • Utilizes financial modeling and risk analysis to make decisions. Evaluates, recommends, and makes decisions based upon proposals and/or contract terms and conditions.
  • Leads value proposition definition and differentiation of product and service portfolio.
  • Identifies and champions new business models or services and is accountable for business plans.
  • Drives alignment and accountability with forecast and SIOP process and aligns with Operations on support for growth.

Requirements

  • At least 10 years of product management, business development and/or category leadership experience.
  • Experience building and executing strategic product roadmaps. 
  • Ability to develop and execute strategy and achieve significant top and bottom-line results.
  • Understands key drivers of sales and profit growth and establishes innovative strategies that create growth. 
  • Ability to generate new business by growing market share, expanding brands, identifying high-growth product categories, and developing new businesses.

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  • Recognizes and assesses risk and key indicators of financial health (e.g., liquidity, profitability, and productivity ratios) and identifies trends from financial data to guide strategic and operational decision making.
  • Understands key financial statements and demonstrates proper cash flow management (capex, working capital, etc.)
  • Ability to quickly grasp strategic concepts and detailed, complex market and customer information and assimilate them into coherent solutions and decisions.   
  • Understands how to utilize different functions and key stakeholder groups (e.g., customers, vendors) to meet unique demands, constraints, and opportunities for the business.
  • An understanding of best-in-class product marketing and ability to build consumer insight capabilities, gather and analyze voice-of-customer, and deliver impactful integrated marketing plans. 
  • Strong financial acumen and the ability to drive decisions that deliver business goals.   
  • A driven leader with inspiring enthusiasm for product management and development. 
  • Ability to build and sustain strong cross-functional relationships functional to influence, ensure open communications and drive alignment. 
  • Desire to build a sense of shared purpose and vision to focus Pentair’s strategic product development and launch plans to deliver impactful, meaningful products and experiences to consumers and partners.
  • Ability to travel as needed for the role.  
  • A bachelor’s degree is required and an MBA or master’s degree is preferred. 
  • Experience working effectively within a business unit matrix structure to ensure functional alignment and high performance. 
  • Demonstrated drive for results that contributes to a high-performance culture. 
  • Ability to adapt quickly to change and ambiguity. 
  • Experience managing and developing a diverse team.
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What You Bring to the Table

Commercialization

A leader who can support commercializing products. A skilled leader with experience through the product lifecycle from ideation to understanding voice of customer to positioning for commercialization and engaging in new product development.

Strategic North Star

Servant leader who can provide guidance and direction that aligns all organizational efforts toward a common and well-defined goal. Serve as a constant reference point, helping the business navigate its journey toward success with clarity and purpose.

Shift to Offense

A leader who has the ability to think strategically and help shift the business to offense by bringing a proactive and assertive approach aimed at seizing opportunities and gaining a competitive edge in the marketplace. 

We believe this opportunity has the potential to be your next best thing. What do you think?