Sales Manager: East and West Africa

SUMMARY:
Africa region | Field-based with extensive travel | Reports to Chief Customer Officer Our client is a specialist life-sciences business seeking a hands-on Sales Manager to drive profitable growth across East and West African markets. This role combines regional sales leadership with direct personal accountability for market entry, new customer acqu...

POSITION INFO:
Africa region | Field-based with extensive travel | Reports to Chief Customer Officer Our client is a specialist life-sciences business seeking a hands-on Sales Manager to drive profitable growth across East and West African markets. This role combines regional sales leadership with direct personal accountability for market entry, new customer acquisition and strategic account development across diverse African territories. Key Responsibilities Take overall accountability for regional sales, gross profit, market share and customer growth across East and West Africa. Identify, assess and personally enter new African markets; develop country-entry plans and convert them into action through prospecting, customer visits, distributor engagement and first sales. Build and lead a high-performing Africa Technical Sales Advisors team while remaining personally active in the market and with strategic customers. Lead senior-level customer engagements, uncover needs and position our client's products and technical capabilities as commercially compelling solutions using value-selling principles. Develop account plans for strategic and key customers that protect existing business, identify cross-sell opportunities and grow Bitek's share of customer spend. Prepare and manage regional sales plans, budgets, forecasts and activity priorities; monitor performance, pipeline conversion, customer retention and new-business contribution. Generate opportunities proactively through market mapping, referrals, industry networks, trade events, targeted visits, distributor relationships and direct prospecting. Provide market, competitor, and customer insight to support product, pricing, and growth strategies; maintain an informed view of market conditions, trends, and competitive activity. Ensure the team maintains strong product and technical knowledge; hold regular field coaching sessions to observe customer interactions and improve selling capability. Align with internal teams (Product, Technical, Marketing, Pricing, Supply Chain, Logistics) to resolve customer issues, deliver commitments and progress growth opportunities. Requirements Proven track record of personally winning new customers and opening new markets across multiple African markets, territories or countries. Demonstrated success in leading, coaching and holding a geographically dispersed sales team accountable for results. Strong commercial judgement, negotiation capability and understanding of margin, pricing and pipeline management. Excellent relationship-building and communication skills; credibility to engage customers and partners from the operational level through to senior executives. Strong analytical and problem-solving ability; capacity to translate market and sales information into practical growth actions. Excellent working knowledge of Microsoft Office and CRM systems. Willing and able to spend a minimum of two weeks out of every month travelling within assigned African territory; resilience, independence and adaptability when operating across diverse markets, cultures and business environments. Valid passport and ability to travel extensively. Bachelor's degree (Honours degree advantageous; BSc in Animal Science or related technical\/commercial field desirable). Comfortable working independently in unfamiliar or developing markets.

NB! This job is now closed. You can apply for other jobs by uploading your CV.