Head of Commercial / Commercial Director

Lanserring is seeking a highly senior, commercially formidable leader to take enterprise-wide ownership of the company’s commercial function. The immediate priority for this role is to bring rigorous commercial leadership, margin discipline, and tender excellence to support the business in increasing profitability while building the platform for long-term international growth. Reporting directly to the CEO and operating as a key member of the senior leadership team, this role will lead commercial profitability, tender governance, bid conversion, contractual risk management, margin recovery, and team performance across the group. This is not simply a functional leadership role; it is a business-critical commercial transformation mandate.

The successful candidate will be expected to provide the leadership required to strengthen commercial discipline, improve win quality, increase margin certainty, and ensure consistent profitability across both UK and US operations. The role will work in close partnership with the Finance Director, Operations Director, Design leadership, and General Managers to ensure Lanserring wins the right projects, prices them intelligently, contracts them robustly, and delivers them profitably.

Location: London, Notting Hill office.

Working hours: Full time.

Key Responsibilities

• Executive Commercial Leadership
  • Lead Lanserring’s full commercial function across estimating, quantity surveying, tendering, pricing, contract governance, and commercial reporting.
  • Build and lead a high-performing organisation.
  • Set group-wide commercial policy, governance standards, margin thresholds, and approval controls.
  • Act as the executive owner of commercial risk, contractual exposure, and margin integrity.
  • Drive stronger accountability, forecasting accuracy, and commercial visibility across the project lifecycle.
• Tender Leadership & Bid Management Excellence
  • Take full leadership of the end-to-end tender and bid management process, effectively establishing a best-in-class Bid Director / Bid Manager function.
  • Lead bid strategy from opportunity qualification through submission, negotiation, and conversion.
  • Chair tender review meetings, pricing gateways, and executive bid sign-off.
  • Improve bid governance, submission quality, tender programming, responsibilities matrices, and internal review processes.
  • Ensure all bids are commercially intelligent, operationally deliverable, and aligned with target profitability.
  • Increase bid conversion quality by focusing on selectivity, strategic fit, and margin resilience, not just volume.
• Profitability & Margin Stabilisation
  • Lead the commercial agenda of the business to ensure sustainable profitability and stable cash-generative growth.
  • Establish margin recovery initiatives across live and future projects.
  • Improve cost assumptions, change control discipline, scope clarity, and contractual protection.
  • Drive stronger commercial awareness across all departments and their teams.
  • Partner with Finance to improve gross margin forecasting, project cash visibility, and early-warning reporting.
  • Create commercial interventions that directly improve EBIT contribution and business resilience.
• Strategic Project Winning
  • Work closely with the CEO, Design Director, Head of Design, and General Managers to shape winning commercial strategies across production-led and design-led projects.
  • Support key client, consultant, architect, and contractor conversations where commercial leadership is decisive.
  • Ensure proposals balance design ambition, craftsmanship quality, delivery practicality, and margin protection.
• Cross-Functional Executive Leadership
  • Partner directly with the CEO on business growth, profitability recovery, and strategic positioning.
  • UK and US General Managers on market conversion and client strategy.
  • Finance Director on P&L performance, margin reporting, and forecasting.
  • Operations Director on capacity, programme risk, and delivery assumptions.
  • Design leadership on concept-to-cost alignment.
  • Serve as the executive bridge between sales ambition, operational capacity, and financial performance.
• Growth & Scalability
  • Build a scalable international commercial structure capable of supporting significant growth.
  • Introduce stronger systems, tender controls, reporting standards, and governance frameworks.
  • Leverage the Unity of Craft network to unlock higher-value project opportunities with controlled risk.
  • Support the strategic ambition to double turnover while improving margin quality and earnings stability.
  • Develop long-term commercial capability across people, process, systems, and leadership bench strength.

Skills & Experience required

• Proven experience operating at Commercial Director / senior group commercial leadership level.
• Strong background in joinery, bespoke interiors, luxury residential, specialist manufacturing, fit-out, or high-end construction.
• Deep expertise in tender leadership, bid strategy, pricing governance, contract negotiation, and margin recovery.
• Strong leadership credentials managing multidisciplinary commercial and estimating teams.
• Executive-level gravitas with clients, consultants, contractors, and internal leadership teams.
• Able to combine strategic leadership with hands-on bid and margin decision-making.
• Highly credible partner to CEO and board on growth-versus-risk decisions.

Success Measures

• Targeted profitability levels.
• Improved gross margin certainty and forecasting accuracy.
• Increased tender conversion quality and bid win rates.
• Improved project selection discipline.
• Reduced commercial leakage and contractual risk exposure.
• Better cash and margin performance across live projects.
• Scalable commercial systems and team capability.
• Contribution to turnover growth with stronger EBIT resilience.
• Effective utilisation of the Unity of Craft network to support complex project delivery.

Competitive Salary and Benefits Package: 25 days per year holiday allowance, hybrid working, flexible start/finish times, performance-related bonuses, private healthcare, life insurance, critical illness cover, pension contribution, cycle to work scheme, enhanced maternity & paternity leave, child nursery discounts, recruitment referral bonus, counselling via our Employee Assistance Programme, health cash plans (dental, optical, physiotherapy, shopping discounts). We also hold regular socials including Friday drinks & fortnightly breakfast and our Summer and Christmas parties.

How to Apply

We want to hear from you! When applying, please include in your CV a brief cover statement explaining why you’re perfect for this role. Highlight how your skills and experience align with the role description - and feel free to tell us about any unique talents, perspectives, or ideas that make you stand out! Please also share your availability, that you have the right to work in the UK and your salary expectation. Applications are assessed on a rolling basis, so please don’t hesitate to submit your application. No agencies. We want you to have every opportunity to shine and show us your talents - please let us know if there is anything we can do to make sure the assessment process works for you.