Location: Nyamata, Rwanda, with significant time in rural villages across Rwanda and other countries in the region
Compensation: Starts modest with significant performance-based raises
Timeframe: 2-5 years
Our client is a social enterprise that helps people live a healthier life.
About the Role
The person that will be hired for this role will have a unique and urgent opportunity to sell a life-saving and life-changing product to as many people as possible. Our client is in a great place; they have developed an excellent product that their customers cherish and that has many benefits. They have scaled rapidly to reach over 1,800 customers in Rwanda within three years. Now, they are ready for a Director of Sales and Marketing with vision to pilot and implement innovative strategies and business models to fundamentally disrupt the home improvement market for the rural poor.
The Director of Sales and Marketing will lead the company in swift expansion to new regions and countries as well as to even lower socio-economic segments of the population. The job will include piloting, iterating, and implementing strategies to improve all aspects of customer relationship management: marketing, sales, branding, payment plans, promotions, pricing, and after-service support.
It will also include developing and testing scaling models. (Organic growth? Franchising? Partnerships? Licensing our oil? The options are endless!) The Director of Sales and Marketing will support sales and marketing teams across Rwanda and Uganda to start, and several more countries as we grow. Our client needs someone who is wildly creative and intellectually curious, excited to take big risks that yield high returns, looks forward to days in the field getting their hands dirty and talking to rural customers, and who runs towards the most challenging of problems, never giving up.
Key responsibilities include:
Sales and Marketing Strategy
• Create systems for procuring and analyzing data about current and potential customers
• Analyzing current sales and marketing strategies to determine their effectiveness and feasibility for duplication
• Developing, piloting, and iterating new sales and marketing strategies (e.g. marketing events, advertising campaigns, financing models)
• Determining sales and marketing strategies in new markets
• Support brand development in new markets and ongoing branding efforts in all markets
• Develop new partnerships and work with existing partners to gather market research and data
• Develop a deep understanding of our customers’ needs, motivations, and willingness to pay
• Share learnings with the senior management and the rest of the team to inform overall organizational strategy
• Support CEO in determining the optimal business model to scale
Execution and Team Support
• Work closely with operations team to align supply and demand in each country
• Develop the structure of the Sales and Marketing Department in each new country as the company establishes the business there, and support the Country Directors in hiring for these roles as we expand
• Support the sales teams of each country where the company operates, including onboarding new sales hires, setting targets, determining strategy, and hiring effective teams
• Improve sales representative recruiting strategy and training by learning across countries
Qualifications
• Educational level of B.A. in business, management, marketing, economics or a related field required; MBA preferred
• 5+ years of marketing and sales experience; experience with fast-growing start-ups is a plus, 2 yrs in management
• Commitment to East Africa and specifically working in rural environments for 2+ years
• Experience living and working in a developing country (preferably Rwanda / East Africa)
• Creative and artistic with an eye for strong visual design and video design
• Experience managing and analyzing budgets; modeling cost-effectiveness of marketing strategies
• Resourcefulness and critical thinking skills to quickly determine why something isn’t working and iterate quickly to try to solve it; creative problem solving
• Exceptional people skills and managerial skills; avid team player; coaching and mentoring approach
• Ability to work on a variety of tasks at the same time
• Maturity and poise under stress
• Excellent attention to detail, commitment to excellence, and outstanding work ethic
• Positive attitude, sense of humor, entrepreneurial spirit, curiosity to learn new things, patient with others
• Passionate about international development and social enterprise
• Strong technology skills (knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, Google Docs, and Dropbox)
• Fluency in English required; proficiency in another language common to East Africa preferred (Swahili, French, Kinyarwanda, Luganda, etc.)
Are you interested in becoming a Global Director Sales and Marketing in Rwanda? Apply now at the top or bottom of our page.
