Associate Director - Solutions (MSP, RPO, Embedded) in Colchester

Akkar is one of the fastest-growing specialist recruitment businesses in the UK, operating across defence, aerospace, space, autonomy, robotics and automotive sectors globally. We’re building a dedicated Solutions division to move our client relationships beyond contingent and retained search into long-term, outcome-based partnerships.

This is a founding commercial hire. You will own the end-to-end business development cycle for RPO, Embedded Talent, MSP and bespoke workforce solutions - from identifying the opportunity, through solution design, to signed commercial agreement.

What You’ll Do:

• Hunt and qualify enterprise opportunities: Build your own target account list across Akkar’s core sectors. Identify companies where the hiring model is broken — high agency spend, slow time-to-fill, poor retention - and position Akkar’s solutions as the commercial answer.
• Sell outcomes, not headcount: Move prospects from a transactional mindset to strategic partnership thinking. You sell on time-to-productivity, cost-per-quality-hire, and employer brand impact - not fees.
• Design the solution before you price it: Lead discovery and scoping sessions that diagnose the client’s current hiring funnel leakage, assess their internal TA capability, and architect a model that fits.
• Navigate complex stakeholder maps: Enterprise deals involve HR, Procurement, Finance and business-line leaders - often with competing agendas.
• Run a disciplined pipeline: Apply structured qualification frameworks to every opportunity. Know when to invest time and when to walk away.
• Own proposals and commercial negotiation: Lead RFP/RFI responses, build pricing models and negotiate MSAs.
• Build the function internally: Work with the CEO to define what Akkar needs to deliver on the solutions you sell.
• Feed intelligence back into the business: Track competitor activity, market pricing trends and buyer behaviour.

Working closely with the Vice President and Solutions team: Drive revenue growth by identifying up-selling opportunities across the current client portfolio. Deliver tailored solutions that align with client needs, and foster long-term partnerships to maximise account value.

What You Bring:

• Enterprise solutions sales pedigree: Minimum 3 years selling RPO, Embedded, MSP or workforce solutions into engineering, technology or industrial sectors.
• Consultative selling instinct: You diagnose before you prescribe.
• MEDDIC (or equivalent) fluency: You can articulate the Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identified Pain and Champion for every live opportunity in your pipeline.
• Credibility without collateral: You’ve sold into situations where the company or product was new and case studies didn’t exist yet.
• Commercial and financial acumen: You build business cases, margin models and ROI analyses.
• Tech-stack literacy: You can discuss ATS/CRM integration, candidate workflow automation and reporting infrastructure with credibility.
• Builder mentality: You are not waiting for leads, marketing decks or a delivery team to be handed to you.

Why Akkar?

• Founding solutions hire with direct CEO access and genuine strategic influence on a new revenue line.
• Global platform across UK/EU, Middle East and North America with 100+ active clients.
• Ambitious scale plan targeting £45M+ revenue by FY2030.
• High-performance, low-politics culture with real autonomy and accountability.
• Competitive base + uncapped commission aligned to solution contract values.