Automation Specialist

For more than a century, Electrozad has been Ontario’s trusted electrical distributor—delivering reliable products, services and solutions for commercial, industrial, and contractor applications.

Sesco (founded 1922) established a strong presence across Central & Eastern Ontario, while Electrozad (founded 1955) became the leading supplier in Southwestern Ontario. From day one, both shared a commitment to quality, reliability and complete electrical & automation solutions.

We are a proud member of the Sonepar Group, the world's largest privately-held electrical distributor. The Sonepar Group is present in more than 40 countries with over 45,000 employees. In Canada, we are represented by 6 locally managed electrical and industrial distributors and have over 110 locations with coverage in 9 provinces.

What’s In It For You?

• You will be joining a market leader with over 40 years of experience to help you elevate your potential.
• You will be working for the world's #1 privately held business to business distributor of electrical products and related solutions.
• A chance to get involved in the forever growing electrical industry.
• We house the largest inventory to better service our customers and deliver on sales commitments.
• An opportunity for career development across many business departments within our organization.

The Opportunity

The Automation Specialist is an outside technical sales professional responsible for accelerating profitable growth across Electrozad’s automation portfolio. Technical capability is the foundation of the role, but success is measured through commercial ownership: building and executing an annual plan, creating demand, developing opportunities, expanding customer relationships, and converting technical value into sustainable revenue growth.

The successful candidate will independently plan a customer-facing week, create appointments, pursue targets, and lead sales activity while balancing office work required to develop architectures, proposals, commercial plans, business reporting, and vendor negotiations. The role works closely with Electrozad account managers, Rockwell Automation, and Technology Partners while maintaining personal accountability for business results.

What You Will Own

• Annual commercial plan: Build, execute, and measure a focused plan for the assigned automation portfolio, target accounts, growth programs, new product introductions, marketing activity, and competency development.
• Revenue growth and pipeline: Identify prospects, qualify opportunities, maintain an accurate CRM funnel, establish next actions, and deliver against assigned revenue and KPI objectives.
• Early project engagement: Build relationships across customer organizations so Electrozad is involved early enough to influence specifications, support the design process, recommend modern and cost-effective architectures, and establish a differentiated position before final procurement decisions.
• Customer coverage: Independently plan field activity and maintain a strong cadence of in-person customer engagement across the assigned geography.
• Account depth and new business: Expand relationships beyond existing contacts, engage technical stakeholders and decision makers, identify new accounts, and work toward preferred-vendor status.
• Customer events and demand creation: Plan and lead seminars, demonstrations, webinars, lunch-and-learns, workshops, and other campaigns; define marketing needs and ensure timely lead follow-up.
• Technical solution development: Translate project and application requirements into right-sized architectures that deliver required functionality, performance, integration, maintainability, security, and scalability.
• Opportunity leadership and closing: Move beyond submitting proposals and waiting. Confirm the customer’s decision process, timing, project status, next step, and commercial requirements; engage the right people, remove obstacles, negotiate constructively, reinforce Electrozad’s value, and confidently ask for the order.
• Opportunity identification: Capture meaningful customer references such as job number, project or machine identifier, upgrade name, or other internal reference so each pursuit can be distinguished, discussed, and followed through accurately.
• Partner ecosystem: Incorporate complementary Technology Partner offerings when Rockwell Automation does not directly address an application requirement.

Portfolio and Market Focus

• Programmable controllers, distributed and remote I/O, HMI, safety systems, industrial computers, industrial networking, design software, operations software, and plant maintenance software.
• Complete automation architectures that connect control, visualization, safety, information, software, and complementary partner technologies.
• Customers include original equipment manufacturers, system integrators, and industrial end users. OEM relationships support machine and equipment opportunities, while end-user engagement creates longer-term modernization, legacy migration, and smart manufacturing opportunities.
• Modernization solutions that help customers adopt secure, reliable, connected, and increasingly data-rich manufacturing systems aligned with Industry 4.0 and future operational needs.
• Competitive positioning based on appropriate pricing and a clear value story: robust architecture, ease of integration, practical engineering tools, lifecycle value, and complete automation solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as the technical and commercial liaison between Electrozad, Rockwell Automation, Technology Partners, and customers.
• Lead outcome-based discovery and connect technical recommendations to operational and business outcomes.
• Develop account and target strategies for new-customer acquisition and expansion within existing accounts.
• Create and deliver persuasive customer presentations, demonstrations, proposals, and value-based recommendations.
• Work with account managers and fellow specialists to assemble complete solutions, while retaining the initiative to originate and advance customer calls independently.
• Provide pre-sales technical guidance and coordinate appropriate post-sales resources while balancing proactive selling with required technical, proposal, planning, and reporting work.
• Capture market intelligence, competitive information, customer feedback, project identifiers, decision criteria, and opportunity updates in a timely and disciplined manner.
• Support internal sales competency through product updates, application guidance, coaching, and joint customer engagement.
• Manage multiple priorities and projects while communicating clearly, meeting commitments, and responding promptly to customers and internal partners.

What Success Looks Like

FIELD & COMMERCIAL EXECUTION

• Customer-facing activity is planned and sustained each week.
• Electrozad is engaged early in priority projects and design conversations.
• Target accounts and opportunities have clear strategies, customer references, decision timelines, and next actions.
• The sales funnel is current, credible, and supports forecasting.
• The specialist engages the right stakeholders and directly advances opportunities toward an order.

CUSTOMER & SOLUTION IMPACT

• Relationships expand across engineering, operations, purchasing, and leadership.
• Events, campaigns, and lead follow-up translate into measurable growth.
• Solutions are technically sound, right-sized, secure, competitive, and scalable.
• Modernization and migration opportunities are developed with end users.
• Commitments are met with reliable, timely communication and follow-through.

Qualifications: Education and Experience & Technical and Commercial Capability

• Electrical Engineering Technology diploma or an equivalent combination of education, technical training, and relevant experience.
• Five years of related automation, controls, application, or technical sales experience is an asset.
• Recent graduates with strong technical fundamentals, learning agility, initiative, and a positive customer-focused attitude will also be considered.
• Exposure to Rockwell Automation products or equivalent competitive automation solutions is an asset.
• Ability to understand industrial applications and communicate technical concepts with credibility to engineers, maintenance teams, operations leaders, purchasing professionals, and business decision makers.
• Ability to develop practical architectures and recommendations using automation hardware, networks, software, and complementary technologies.
• Commercial mindset with the confidence to qualify opportunities, understand decision processes, discuss value, negotiate, address competitive pressure, establish clear next steps, and ask for the business.
• Effective technical writing, presentation, demonstration, and group facilitation skills.
• Comfort using CRM, productivity, presentation, and digital sales tools to manage activity and opportunity follow-through.
  
  

Travel and Employment Requirements

• Valid driver’s licence and ability to travel regularly between customer sites and Electrozad locations.
• Ability to travel to the United States for required training, meetings, and vendor activities.
• Ability to work safely and professionally in customer industrial environments.
• Flexibility to support customer events and business requirements that may occasionally occur outside standard working hours.

Benefits & Perks:

We offer a competitive salary, plus a full set of benefits, including:

• Flexible benefits program allowing you to choose from options that best fit you and your dependents’ needs. Benefit options include: Medical, Dental, Vision, Health Spending Account & RRSP matching.
• Employee Assistance Program, Tuition Reimbursement, Employee Discounts and a career path.
• Regardless of your benefits program, you will receive company paid Life Insurance, and employee paid disability.

Please note that, whilst not expected, the company may pay at a rate outside of the range for this role where appropriate. Actual compensation commensurate with the candidate’s experience, education, internal parity, role complexity, role level, and other relevant factors. The advertised salary range relates to Ontario and is provided in accordance with the Ontario Pay Transparency Act. We recognize however that salaries are often driven by market forces in the local area where a candidate is based and accordingly the salary range may not apply outside of Ontario.

More information on Electrozad:

Sonepar places the planet and diversity and inclusion at the core of its vision driving our business ethos.

Today, Sonepar is the leading distributor of energy-efficient products, pioneering the energy transition and making sustainability a priority. At Sonepar, we firmly believe that every action is crucial in safeguarding the environment, driving our commitment to a more sustainable future. We have accelerated our own transition to efficient generation and use of electrical energy across our business and champion the innovation of sustainable solutions in the market.

This commitment is tangible in our detailed Global CSR report, to learn more please visit

Sonepar has been recognized as a Diversity Leader by the Financial Times’ 2024 Diversity Leaders ranking and was awarded GEEIS Certification in 2022. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, welcoming submissions from all candidates. We believe in creating a work environment where everyone can feel safe, use their voice, and know that they belong. Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) is a central focus of our global, strategic impact plan. We value diversity and inclusion in the workplace because it allows us to better meet the needs of the communities we serve. It helps us foster greater creativity, breadth of experience, and it’s essential to our success as an organization. All qualified individuals, regardless of race, ethnic or national origin, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, neurodiversity, disability status, gender identity, veteran status or any other aspect which makes them unique are encouraged to apply.

For more information about our Inclusion and Diversity initiatives, please visit

Sonepar is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes submissions from all candidates. Accommodation is available to all applicants upon request. If selected for an interview, please advise the Sonepar representative of your accommodation needs at that time. We will work with all applicants to accommodate their accessibility needs.

Next steps:

We are interested in knowing more about you. Start an exciting new career and enjoy a number of benefits by applying online. While we are very grateful for your interest in joining the team, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.