Head of Commercial, Marketing & Communications

About ENGIE Energy Access (EEA)

ENGIE Energy Access is a leading Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGo) and mini-grids solutions provider in Africa, with a mission to deliver affordable, reliable and sustainable energy solutions and life-changing services with exceptional customer experience. The company is a result of the integration of Fenix International, ENGIE Mobisol and ENGIE PowerCorner; and develops innovative, off-grid solar solutions for homes, public services and businesses, enabling customers and distribution partners access to clean, affordable energy. The PAYGo solar home systems are financed through affordable installments from $0.14 per day and the mini-grids foster economic development by enabling electrical productive use and triggering business opportunities for entrepreneurs in rural communities.

With over 1,700 employees, operations in nine countries across Africa (Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia), over 1 million customers and more than 5 million lives impacted so far, ENGIE Energy Access aims to remain a leading clean energy company, serving millions of customers across Africa by 2025.

www.engie-africa.com

www.linkedin.com/company/engie-africa

Job Purpose: Mission

ENGIE Energy Access Benin is looking for a dynamic and entrepreneurial Head of Commercial, Marketing & Communications to take on a unique leadership role in a rapidly growing company at the front lines of renewable energy and mobile payment technology.

The Head of Commercial will play a critical role in ENGIE Energy Access Benin (EEAB). As Commercial Director, you are responsible for developing and implementing Sales, Marketing & Business Development (Partnerships and New Products) strategies to accelerate growth with our current and new, while maintaining strong customer repayments. You are also expected to identify new commercial opportunities, manage marketing efforts and coordinate the execution of market research and analysis to create business plans based on commercial opportunities.

Key Responsibilities, Deliverables and Activities

Responsibilities

• Set and manage the overarching strategic direction, priorities and focus areas for sales commercial (sales, marketing and business development), cascading and ensuring alignment throughout EEAB.
• Manage consolidated country P&L commercial performance (primarily revenue and gross profit), with a secondary focus on driving overall EBITDA (given sales team core responsibilities for credit, product, operations, and CX outcomes).
• Where the country is underperforming on sales and commercial targets, manage turnaround efforts to remediate performance.
• Establish a best-in-class commercial operating model, with a high-impact and right-sized organizational structure, tools, reports, standards and systems.
• Lead our go-to-market strategy through understanding our customers, the market and competitive landscape then determining competitive positioning with regards to products, prices, channels and locations.
• Develop and lead a team a commercial team on a local, regional and national level, with full responsibility for the team’s workplan, coaching and professional development.
• Lead and oversee strategic projects to improve commercial performance.

Detailed Responsibilities

 Strategy, Planning & Budgeting (10%)

• Set and manage the overarching strategic direction, priorities and focus areas for commercial across EEAB over the short, medium and long-term.
• Develop the commercial strategy to drive efficient customer acquisition and revenue growth throughout EEAB, including directly owning key inputs with our go-to-market strategy (locations, distribution channels, marketing, partnerships, new products etc.) and collaborating cross-functionally to determine other key strategic inputs (e.g. product, pricing, CX, Operations, etc.)
• Ensure regions have localised strategies in line with the country strategy and have robust plans to deliver the country targets, including allocating sufficient investment and resources to reliably execute.
• As part of the management team, provide thought partnership for cross-functional leads, provide input into strategies, act as a key stakeholder on cross-functional decisions and ensure that core commercial and enabling functions align with the sales strategy.
• Develop the sales, marketing and business development team budgets, and track departmental expenditures, financial goals and budgets.
• Where required, both lead and oversee strategic commercial projects to drive sales growth across EEAB.
• Own Sales Forecasting Process ensuring country ensuring that both short term and long-term forecasts are validated as per SOP and the country achieves industry standard forecast accuracy.

Governance, Reporting, Analytics & Performance Management (40%)

• Continuously manage country P&L performance, including:

• Primary focus on revenue (through sales volumes, kit mix and price), gross profit (through maximization of higher margin sales with lower COGS) and cost of sales.
• Secondary focus on EBIT, given sales team core responsibilities for credit, product, operations, and CX outcomes.

• Set the overarching sales target setting process, approve regional sales targets.
• Oversee the development of reports, analysis and insights for financial performance and other operational KPIs for sales (per sales manager / agent, active agents) and marketing (brand health, marketing spend, referrals, etc.).
• Establish the overarching governance framework to track performance against commercial goals, lead national governance forums and hold Regional Managers and other departments accountable for results and plans.
• Where there is underperformance, provide hands-on support to turnaround and make key decisions to remediate performance.
• Continuously monitor performance of other key functions that drive sales, including product, pricing, sales, distribution, portfolio health, customer experience, software, and service with potential partners, working with them to take remediation action to address underperformance.

Commercial & Marketing Operations (30%)

• Lead and manage development of a robust sales operating model, including:

• Develop procedures and policies for core sales operations functions (lead and opportunity management; recruitment and training, tools of trade, incentives, size and structure, government reporting and performance management etc.).
• Implement procedures and policies throughout the sales function, monitor and ensure compliance, continually test and improve.

• Lead and manage marketing operations, including:

• Lead market research, including the market and competitive landscape to identify analyze threats and opportunities.
• Segment EEA Benin’s customers and develop tailored strategies to target specific customers’ profiles (SHS, SBS, Minigrids).
• Identify trends in customer behavior closely following sales, product usage, customer retention, upgrades and competitors, leveraging this data to enhance our commercial strategy.
• Supervise all marketing channels and methods to ensure appropriate information is effectively communicated to external audiences (including leading campaigns).

• Establish and manage external partnerships, including negotiating ongoing contracts with suppliers and customers, managing and reviewing contracts and making recommendations regarding commerciality.

Leadership, Management & Culture (20%)

• Develop and lead a team of sales, commercial and marketing managers, including full responsibility for coaching and their professional development.
• Manage the team’s work plan and workload to ensure delivery of agreed goals.
• Help recruit, collaborate with, coordinate and train diverse teams such as field sales, B2B channels and credit teams.
• Provide strong leadership, management and coaching for regional sales and marketing teams, including with support to other members of the Management Team.

Required Qualification & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration / communications / marketing / public Relations or Business. MBA an added advantage.
• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in progressive business leadership experience, with 3+ years leading a Commercial & Marketing function in related areas or sectors such as microfinance, digital financial services, telecoms, project management, data analysis, or field team management, with proven track record of generating and converting opportunities into commercial contracts.
• Strong commercial capability across sales and marketing (B2C and / or B2B), with a demonstrated history of leading and delivering strong commercial results.
• Outstanding leadership, having led large field-based sales teams and the ability to create a performance culture with strong governance, accountability and results.
• Strong understanding of the Benin commercial environment, ideally with time spent in various regions throughout Benin.
• General strategic, analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to set and communicate the strategic vision for commercial & marketing throughout the organization.
• Ability to lead high-impact cross-functional strategic commercial & marketing projects end to end (including planning, analysis, conclusions and implementation) to achieve results.
• Exceptional judgement and decision-making skills, with the ability to independently assess and take action to achieve results.
• Outstanding stakeholder engagement and communication skills, with the ability to develop relationships with key functional leads (especially Customer Finance, Customer Experience and Operations) but also with external strategic commercial & marketing partners.
• Demonstrated passion for our mission, values and customers!

Languages:

• French, English.

ENGIE is an equal opportunity employer, promoting diversity and committed to creating an inclusive environment for all. All applications are screened based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without any regard to origin, age, name, sexual identity, orientation or preference, religion, marital status, health, disability, political opinions, union involvement or citizenship. Our differences are our strengths!