Business Development Manager - Power

Ann Swann Personnel (Pty) Ltd; Gauteng; On-site; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Ann Swann Personnel (Pty) Ltd is seeking an experienced Business Development Manager to lead strategic growth across Sub-Saharan Africa. The role focuses on identifying new market opportunities, establishing sustainable operations in new territories, and driving long-term profitable expansion.

You will steer sales strategy, manage a team, and collaborate with technical and commercial units to develop market-ready solutions for power-generation projects.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 8 years’ overall sales and marketing experience.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience managing and leading a sales team.
• Proven experience in business development and market expansion across industrial/engineering sectors.

Responsibilities

• Develop and finalise strategic expansion plans across target markets in SSA.
• Lead sales teams, coach staff, and achieve commercial targets.
• Identify opportunities, build partnerships, and manage CRM-driven pipelines.
• Collaborate with technical and operations teams to deliver viable customer solutions.
• Monitor market trends, competitors, and adapt strategies.
• Travel extensively across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Skills

Strategic sales leadership

Market expansion

Stakeholder management

Challenger Sales

CRM software

Tools

CRM software

Job description

We are seeking an experienced and commercially driven Business Development Manager to join our client’s team to lead strategic business growth and market expansion across Sub-Saharan Africa. The successful candidate will be responsible for identifying and developing new market opportunities, establishing sustainable business operations in new territories, and driving long-term profitable growth.

This is a senior business development position requiring a strong combination of technical expertise, strategic sales leadership, financial acumen, and market development experience. The ideal candidate will have extensive knowledge of power generators, switchgear, megawatt-scale power projects and dewatering pumps, together with a proven track record of managing sales teams and developing business across complex markets.

Duties and Responsibilities

Business Development & African Expansion

• Develop and finalise the strategic business plan for expansion into targeted markets across the African continent.
• Identify and evaluate new territories, market opportunities, customer segments and potential commercial partnerships.
• Establish a sustainable foothold in new markets and develop long-term expansion plans for the region.
• Drive new operations towards critical business mass as efficiently as possible to support profitable and sustainable growth.
• Develop and maintain a strong pipeline of new business opportunities across targeted industries and territories.
• Explore and implement new commercial models and offerings to support increased market penetration.
• Identify opportunities to introduce new technologies, solutions and revenue streams into existing and emerging markets.
• Develop a comprehensive understanding of the addressable market and drive strategies to increase market share.
• Lead the execution of business development and sales strategies, identifying weaknesses, developing corrective plans and establishing clear priorities.
• Manage, coach and develop the sales team to achieve agreed commercial objectives.
• Implement effective CRM practices to manage opportunities, customer relationships, sales activities and pipeline development.
• Apply structured sales methodologies, including Challenger Sales concepts, to strengthen customer engagement and commercial performance.
• Develop strong customer relationships and position the business as a trusted technical and commercial partner.
  Monitor market trends, competitor activities and changing customer requirements.
• Collect, evaluate and implement relevant best practices from other regions and business units.

Technical & Market Development

• Work closely with technical and operational teams to develop commercially viable solutions for customers.
• Explore new technical and commercial opportunities aligned with changing customer and market requirements.
• Drive the adoption and commercialisation of new technologies across the region.
• Support the development of multiple commercial offerings to facilitate further market penetration.
• Maintain a strong understanding of business performance, financial results and commercial targets.
• Analyse current performance, understand variances and develop action plans to achieve agreed financial objectives.
• Ensure new business ventures and expansion initiatives are commercially sustainable and profitable.
• Develop a strong understanding of processes across the various business disciplines to ensure effective execution.
• Ensure business development strategies align with wider organisational transformation and digitalisation initiatives, including the SPARK programme.
• Support the implementation and adoption of new business processes and digital tools.
• Develop organisational awareness around the commercial value of data and opportunities to utilise data as a revenue-generating product.
• Minimum of 8 years’ overall sales and marketing experience.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience managing and leading a sales team.
• Proven experience in business development and market expansion, ideally within industrial, engineering, power generation or related technical environments.
• Extensive technical and commercial knowledge of power generators, switchgear and megawatt-scale power projects.
• Technical knowledge and/or commercial experience relating to dewatering pumps.
• Strong experience working with CRM software and structured sales pipeline management.
• Experience with or strong knowledge of Challenger Sales concepts/methodology.
• Strong commercial and financial management capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and execute strategic business plans.
• Experience developing new markets, territories and commercial opportunities.
• Strong leadership, coaching and people-development capabilities.
• Excellent communication, negotiation and stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability to operate effectively across different countries, markets and cultures.
• Willingness and ability to undertake extensive travel throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.