International Strategic Business Developer

As an International Strategic Business Developer, you will identify tomorrow’s international growth opportunities and help bol seize strategic international opportunities with a 2–5-year horizon.

How do you make our customers happy?

The next wave of customer value at bol won’t come from incremental improvements. It will come from seizing strategic international opportunities we haven’t explored or maximized yet. As our International Strategic Business Developer, you’ll identify opportunities with a 2–5-year horizon, build a deep understanding of the critical success factors, and inspire the wider organization to act. As a true strategic pioneer, you will build first pathways to prove the value potential and provide the organization with a strong fundament to effectively capture the value for our customers.

The biggest challenge

Despite a raft of recent technological advances, we’re still no closer to inventing a crystal ball. And the world of cross-border e-commerce is changing faster than you can track it. Your challenge is to identify high-potential opportunities that can genuinely move the needle – and thoroughly understand their critical success factors, without prior experience or existing use cases to lean on. All while calibrating your time investment against the probability that a given opportunity can be the next big thing for bol. The topics you’ll own are typically greenfield, complex, and impactful for many different teams. Strong stakeholder engagement is required at all levels and across a wide variety of disciplines.

What you’ll do as an International Strategic Business Developer

You’ll join our International Network Development team (25+ colleagues and growing) and report to the Head of International Strategic Business Development, with whom you’ll collaborate closely. You’ll work with teams across the organization to explore topics in the fields of Commerce, Product, Tech, Logistics, Marketing, Legal, and Tax. And you’ll forge advantageous external partnerships.

You’ll form a vision on high-value strategic opportunities and business-critical international developments. You prioritize with laser focus, then dive autonomously into the most promising topics, building a thorough understanding of what it takes to succeed. You’ll define a plan of approach, engage critical stakeholders cross-functionally, and organize for efficient execution. After proving the value potential and establishing a first approach to capture it, you’ll secure your work in the organization and hand it off to operational teams.

While you will work with a full international scope, specifically also the Chinese manufacturing and cross-border ecommerce market is of global strategic importance. Thorough understanding of the Chinese cross-border ecommerce landscape is highly valuable. First-hand familiarity with the Chinese business culture and fluency in Mandarin to navigate this market effectively are strong prerequisites.

What that looks like in practice:

• Identify high-value opportunities through data analysis, market research, and cross-border trend monitoring
• Translate insights into concrete proposals and actionable strategic plans
• Present compelling arguments to senior leadership to facilitate strategic decision-making
• Identify and build relationships with top-tier external partners
• Coordinate complex international (pilot) programs from ideation to implementation
• Embed value-capturing approaches in the organization and hand off projects to business units

Why you can make a difference

You understand the complex dynamics of cross-border e-commerce and can independently form a substantiated vision on key strategic opportunities and risks. You translate that vision into ambitious, concrete plans and execute autonomously. Collaborating across disciplines comes naturally to you, and senior stakeholders value your strategic insight. When required, you actively connect with external parties and build relationships that create tangible value.

You have 7–10 years of experience in e-commerce, ideally including strong exposure to the Chinese cross-border seller market. A relevant bachelor’s or master’s degree underpins your approach. You are fluent in English and preferably also in Mandarin, verbally and in writing. Your ability to navigate between strategic vision and operational reality, between internal stakeholders and external partners, and between long-term ambition and near-term proof points sets you apart.

3 reasons why this is (not) for you

• Execution only You perform at your best with a clear-cut task and set of instructions
• Dopamine seeker You prefer immediate results over setting up the business for long-term success
• No surprises You get stressed when things take an unexpected turn, or when a topic you invested energy in doesn’t pan out

• Ingenious oracle You connect insights and developments across the organization and international markets, and proactively form a vision on high-value strategic opportunities
• Resolute explorer You dive into greenfield topics where no one has gone before, create clarity in the mist, and pinpoint critical success factors
• Multidimensional connector You bring vision, people, projects, and processes together into a coherent whole, where the sum is greater than the parts

Where you’ll work

You’ll join the International Network Development team — a driven group of 25+ colleagues that infuses our international partner portfolio with energy and strategic ambition. The culture is collaborative, results-oriented, and hands-on. With 2,900 colleagues serving 13.7 million customers and 47,000 partners, your work directly impacts bol’s international trajectory.

Relocation

We offer relocation assistance to the Netherlands from the moment you have the job.

Flexible working

We bring the best of both worlds together by working 50% at the office and 50% at home. This way, we find a balance between organisational and individual needs.

The culture and the office

Our colleagues work hard to make the daily lives of our customers easier and more fun. But of course, we do this in an inspiring and creative environment!