Sales Manager (Africa)

Top Vitae; Midrand; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Top Vitae is seeking a Sales Manager for East and West Africa, a hands-on leadership role focused on profitable growth across African markets. The role entails travel, market expansion, and direct customer development, with responsibility for sales, gross profit and market share.

You will build and lead a high-performing sales team, pursue new markets and channels, and manage strategic customer relationships across the region.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field; honours advantageous.
• Proven track record in developing business across multiple African markets and opening new markets.
• Strong ability to lead, coach and manage a geographically dispersed sales team.

Responsibilities

• Take accountability for regional sales, gross profit and customer growth.
• Lead a high-performing sales team and stay actively in-market with customers.
• Personally identify and develop new African markets from assessment to first sales.
• Expand footprint by developing new customers, distributors and routes to market.
• Maintain discipline in pipeline and ensure CRM accuracy and timely actions.
• Drive pricing strategy within company margins and forecasts.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic sales planning

Cross-cultural communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Microsoft Office

CRM systems

Job description

The Sales Manager: East and West Africa is accountable for delivering profitable, sustainable growth across the company's African markets. This is a highly visible, hands-on commercial leadership role for an individual who is energised by travel, new-market development and building business across diverse African territories. The role combines leadership of the east and West Africa sales team with direct personal ownership of market expansion, strategic customer development and the opening of new countries, channels and accounts. Travel is fundamental to the role: the incumbent is expected to spend a minimum of two weeks out of every month travelling and working in the African territory, with additional travel where business opportunities require it.

Responsibilities:

• Objectives:

  • Take overall accountability for sales, gross profit, market share and customer growth across the Africa region.

  • Build and lead a high-performing sales team while remaining personally active in the market and with customers.

  • Personally identify, enter and develop new African markets, taking opportunities from market assessment through to first customer wins and sustainable commercial growth.

  • Expand Company's footprint by developing new customers, distributors, strategic partners and routes to market across priority African countries.

  • Retain and grow strategic customers by acting as a trusted commercial and technical partner and identifying opportunities for deeper collaboration.

  • Provide market, competitor and customer insight that supports Company's product, pricing and growth strategies.

• Africa Growth Strategy & Market Expansion

  • Develop and execute the Africa sales and market-development strategy in line with Company's overall growth objectives, with clear priorities by country, segment, channel and customer.

  • Personally own the identification and opening of new African markets. Assess market attractiveness, customer potential, competitive dynamics, route-to-market options, regulatory or operational barriers, and the commercial case for entry.

  • Create practical country-entry plans and convert them into action through in-market prospecting, customer visits, distributor/partner engagement, trials, commercial proposals and first sales.

  • Build Company's presence in underdeveloped territory rather than relying only on the existing customer base or sales team pipeline.

  • Maintain a disciplined pipeline of new-country, new-customer and strategic growth opportunities, with defined actions, owners, values and timelines.

  • Recommend where Company should invest time and resources based on commercial potential and the probability of building a sustainable position.

• Hands-on Business Development & Customer Acquisition

  • Act as a senior business developer in the field and personally pursue high-value prospects, strategic accounts and new-market opportunities.

  • Generate opportunities proactively through market mapping, referrals, industry networks, trade events, targeted visits, distributor relationships and direct prospecting.

  • Lead senior-level customer engagements, uncover customer needs and position Company's products and technical capabilities as commercially compelling solutions.

  • Own opportunities from initial contact through qualification, technical engagement, trial, quotation, negotiation, commercial close and early-stage account development.

  • Use value-selling principles to demonstrate measurable customer benefit rather than competing primarily on price.

• Sales Leadership & Performance Management

  • Take overall accountability for achievement of regional sales, gross profit and customer-growth targets, ensuring that individual team plans support the regional plan.

  • Lead, coach, motivate, develop and retain the Africa Technical Sales Advisors, setting clear standards for activity, pipeline quality, customer coverage and commercial performance.

  • Spend regular time in the field with team members to observe customer interactions, coach selling capability, improve opportunity conversion and maintain Company's standards of professionalism.

  • Hold regular sales and pipeline reviews and intervene early where activity, conversion, margin or customer performance is below expectation.

  • Ensure the team maintains strong product and technical knowledge and uses Company's CRM consistently and accurately.

• Key Account Management & Customer Retention

  • Build senior relationships with strategic and key customers and establish Company as a long-term partner and advisor.

  • Develop account plans that protect existing business, identify cross-sell and growth opportunities and increase Company's share of customer spend.

  • Monitor competitive activity within key accounts and ensure appropriate response strategies are developed and executed.

  • Make sound commercial decisions regarding the allocation of time, technical resources, trials, pricing support and other investment in customer opportunities.

  • Ensure significant customer complaints or service issues are resolved promptly in collaboration with the appropriate internal teams.

• Commercial Planning, Pricing & Execution

  • Prepare and manage the regional sales plan, budgets, forecasts and activity priorities, with accountability for delivery against agreed targets and expense budgets.

  • Work within Company's pricing and margin frameworks and ensure commercial proposals are compelling, accurate and aligned to required profitability.

  • Monitor sales performance, gross profit, pipeline conversion, customer retention and new-business contribution and take corrective action where required.

  • Provide reliable forecasts and clear recommendations to the CEO on risks, opportunities and resource priorities across the region.

• Market Intelligence, Competitors & Product Input

  • Maintain an informed view of market conditions, customer trends, competitive activity, product positioning and emerging opportunities across the African territory.

  • Provide management with clear commercial insight on changes in competition, customer behaviour, product availability, pricing and market potential.

  • Capture customer feedback and unmet needs and work with the Product and Technical teams to support new product development, product improvement and successful launches.

  • Maintain strong personal product and technical knowledge in the relevant Company categories.

• Internal Collaboration & Sales Discipline

  • Align effectively with Product, Technical, Marketing, Pricing, Supply Chain, Logistics and other stakeholders to deliver on customer commitments and growth opportunities.

  • Ensure material sales activities, opportunities, customer interactions and next actions are accurately recorded in the CRM and progressed to conclusion.

  • Provide concise, regular management reporting on regional performance, market development, pipeline, team effectiveness, risks and opportunities.

  • Continuously improve sales processes and regional ways of working to increase speed, accountability and customer responsiveness.

• Travel & Territory Commitment

  • This is an Africa-based field leadership role with extensive travel as an essential and non-negotiable requirement.

  • The incumbent must be willing and able to spend a minimum of two weeks out of every month away from home, travelling and working within the assigned African territory; travel may exceed this level when business priorities require it.

  • The successful candidate should genuinely enjoy being in-market - meeting customers, opening doors, visiting new countries, developing relationships and building commercial opportunities from the ground up.

  • The role requires resilience, independence, adaptability and sound judgement when operating across diverse markets, cultures and business environments.

Requirements:

• Relevant Bachelor's degree. An Honours degree is advantageous; a BSc in Animal Science or a related technical/commercial field is desirable.

• Demonstrated success in developing business across multiple African markets, territories or countries.

• Proven track record of personally winning new customers and opening new markets, not only managing an established sales team or inherited customer base.

• Proven ability to lead, coach and hold a geographically dispersed sales team accountable for results.

• Strong commercial judgement, negotiation capability and understanding of margin, pricing, pipeline management and opportunity prioritisation.

• Excellent relationship-building and communication skills, with the credibility to engage customers and partners from operational level through to senior executives.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability, with the capacity to translate market and sales information into practical growth actions.

• Comfortable working independently, travelling extensively and operating in unfamiliar or developing markets.

• Excellent working knowledge of Microsoft Office and CRM systems; valid passport and ability to travel extensively are essential.

Please consider your application unsuccessful should you not receive a response within two weeks of applying.