Deal Desk Lead: Complex Commercial Strategy & Governance

CO_SNFSL Apex Group Fiduciary Services; Cape Town; Sur place; ZAR 1 100 000 - 1 700 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

Apex Group in Cape Town is seeking a Senior Manager to lead Deal Desk activities, shaping governance and strategy for high-stakes commercial pursuits. You will partner with Sales across the opportunity lifecycle, build robust deal structures, and drive governance that balances risk with commercial value.

The role demands senior Deal Desk and revenue operations experience, CRM fluency, and a strong grasp of controls and revenue recognition.

Qualifications

• A relevant tertiary qualification.
• Significant, senior-level Deal Desk, Commercial Operations, or Revenue Operations experience, ideally including time spent helping build a commercial operations function for a revenue business - not only operating one that already exists.
• A genuine track record structuring and closing complex, non-standard commercial deals, working alongside Sales as a partner in winning them - not just approving them after the fact.
• Fluency working inside a CRM (Salesforce or equivalent) across the full opportunity lifecycle - you know how to read a pipeline, not just a deal.
• Hands-on experience with Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) tools, and an understanding of how they connect commercial terms to downstream contract execution and risk.
• Strong understanding of internal controls and governance frameworks for deal approval, and why they exist.
• Solid financial acumen - pricing, margin, and enough grounding in revenue recognition principles to spot when a deal structure creates downstream risk.
• A process-and-systems mindset, with the judgement to know where automation earns its keep.
• Comfort

Responsabilités

• Partner with Sales and CRM across the full opportunity lifecycle.
• Embed with Sales from Identify through Closed Won - not just at sign-off - working the opportunity as it develops in the CRM to spot risk early, shape deal strategy while there's still time to influence it, and give Sales a partner who helps them win, not a gate they have to get past.
• Own our most complex commercial pursuits. You'll structure and negotiate advanced, non-standard deals across the full spectrum of our portfolio - from the operational simplicity of Apex Invest subscriptions through to the regulatory and structural complexity of Fund Administration engagements.
• Where a deal doesn't fit the standard pattern, you're the person who works out what "good" looks like.
• Build the governance and control backbone. You'll help design and operate the internal control framework and tiered governance model - auto-approval, Deal Desk review, escalation to specialist governance groups - that keeps scoping, control-product approval and commercial sign-off proportionate to actual risk.
• Governance that protects the business without becoming the reason deals stall.
• Balance commercial value with financial accuracy. You'll bring real judgement to pricing, margin and deal structure - securing strong commercial outcomes for Apex while ensuring the numbers behind every deal are accurate and hold up under scrutiny, including against revenue recognition principles.
• Be the connective tissue across the business. You'll build genuine working relationships with Sales, Product Management, Business Operations and Legal - not just transactional signoffs.
• Help design process, systems and automation that pay off. You'll partner on process and systems design as the function is built, with a sharp eye for where automation genuinely removes friction and returns value - and where it would just add complexity for its own sake.
• Understand the full range of commercial models. Subscription, usage-based, professional services, complex fee structures across regulated fund administration products - you'll be comfortable moving between them and know what "good commercial outcome" means differently in each.

Connaissances

Deal Desk experience

CRM proficiency

Negotiation skills

Pricing & margins

Cross-functional collaboration

Governance & controls

Revenue recognition knowledge

Automation mindset

Formation

Tertiary qualification

Outils

CLM tools

Description du poste

Apex Group in Cape Town is seeking a Senior Manager to lead Deal Desk activities, shaping governance and strategy for high-stakes commercial pursuits. You will partner with Sales across the opportunity lifecycle, build robust deal structures, and drive governance that balances risk with commercial value.

The role demands senior Deal Desk and revenue operations experience, CRM fluency, and a strong grasp of controls and revenue recognition.