Regional Commercial Manager - Crop Protection

SUMMARY:

A multinational agricultural company is seeking a dedicated Regional Commercial Manager to be accountable for leading the commercial, operational, and strategic performance of the assigned area. This role demands a step change in ambition — reinventing the Cape area’s approach to market development, customer engagement, and business growth through a bold, reimagined strategy. The successful candidate will define and execute a forward-looking vision and area strategy, aligning people, resources, and partnerships to unlock new value, strengthen competitive positioning, and deliver market share growth, channel loyalty, and sustainable profitability.

POSITION INFO:

Minimum requirements for the role:

• Must have an agricultural degree and background with proven results
• Demonstrated broad technical knowledge of crops, products, and farming practices, with approximately five years’ relevant experience
• Must have a good understanding of the business, key account management, the market and how to add customer value
• Strong focus on building partnerships, managing relationships, motivating others, and delivering on targets
• Demonstrated success and leadership potential across different departments
• Proven ability to lead, coach, and drive team performance while motivating area teams
• Strong leadership capability with effective team collaboration skills
• Effective communicator; fully bilingual with well-developed persuasion skills

• Developing and executing a transformative Area Strategy aligned with national business objectives, incorporating new routes to market, customer segmentation, and value propositions.
• Developing and implementing a 5-year strategy for each Distributor in the area to support a re-defined long-term ambition for the Cape Region.
• Achieving the agreed profit and volume goals for the relevant region and dealerships, consistent with the overall sales and marketing strategy.
• Optimizing territory management, resource allocation, and channel performance to deliver strategic priorities efficiently.
• Identifying new growth opportunities through data-driven analysis, competitive intelligence, and market insights.
• Leading change management initiatives to embed a high-performance culture focused on innovation, accountability, and customer centricity.
• Delivering annual sales targets for the area (agreed profit and volume goals).
• Managing and leading Sales Managers in the area.
• Managing and developing a high level of service delivery towards targeted Key Customers, as well as investigating ways to improve customer SOW.
• Assisting and supporting Sales Managers with customers (dealers, agents, growers) in terms of technical support, recommendations, and training.
• Overseeing and guiding all engagement between the Sales, Agronomy, Marketing, and CPD teams to ensure effective execution of commercial campaigns and delivery on set targets.
• Managing and developing market information, budgets, forecasts, business planning, and partnership agreements with the area team (Sales Managers, Agronomists, Campaign teams).
• Identifying, defining, establishing, and maintaining influential relationships with relevant institutes and key crop value opinion leaders together with RBMs and SP.
• Focusing resources on growers and key influencers in the food/feed chain, creating pull approaches.
• Building relationships across the value chain by identifying lead influencers.
• Identifying key crop, product, and market opportunities and threats for the area.
• Supporting Sales Managers, Technical Leads, and Agronomists in investigating and managing complaints/claims to minimize financial loss (acting as second-line contact for the company).
• Developing the competence, motivation, and commitment of Dealers and Agents through effective training, promotion, and sales support aids.
• Keeping abreast of market, trade, and competitor activity in order to revise strategies to meet changing requirements.
• Supporting the Marketing team to ensure market information accuracy in I-Plan for allocated crops.