The HOS’s main responsibility is to provide leadership, direction, and resource stewardship to manage the growth of sales of menstrual products across all traditional and novel channels. As the company’s senior most sales team member in a current team of 8 in sales and 3 in operations, the HOS is accountable to the CEO for overall sales performance, the profitable achievement of sales goals including growth of the team, and expansion across locations. The HOS will expand sales across Kenya and East Africa, and work in partnership with the Head of Marketing who also leads our health products. Metrics for success include scale of sales against targets, ROI, and social impact.

ZanaAfrica ensures women and girls have a positive menstrual and reproductive health experience by improving access to transformative, reliable menstrual and reproductive health solutions. We are not just selling sanitary pads: we are building a movement to help women and girls confidently define their own reproductive health journey. As global thought leaders, we have helped forge policies on menstrual products including creating the data to build a case for impact; as a social enterprise, we have set a standard of Fast Moving Educational Goods. As we prepare to celebrate our 10-year anniversary, and having achieved significant learnings on product innovation and sales, we are just getting started.

Key responsibilities of the HOS

• Business strategy: Participate and contribute to the strategic planning process for the company, providing direction with regard to sales, distribution, business development, brand visibility, product development, and customer experience to drive growth and profitability; singularly accountable to achieve sales targets and reporting monthly and quarterly on sales to the senior management and board of directors
• Lead sales growth: Establish activity and revenue targets across accounts and locations for the menstrual products sales teams, in respect to both traditional and NGO channels; ensure cost-effective distribution, brand recognition, and sales team trainings for strong return on investment of activities
• Market insights: Carry out periodic reviews of market performance with the sales team and distributors to identify new competitor or market concerns, and new product or market opportunities, providing feedback and recommendations to company leadership team
• Change management: Lead the company’s sales change initiatives by continuously assessing the need for organizational or strategy change, championing change initiatives, and removing obstacles impeding constructive organizational change.
• Back End Operations: Provide managerial leadership to Sales Operations team, proactively assessing back-end operations, inventory management, and instating sales performance management systems to ensure a healthy P&L

A week in the life

If you are a purpose-driven sales leader, you will wake up every day excited to enact different parts of your strategy to ensure hundreds and thousands of girls and women have a new level of confidence, dignity, and self-determination. Some things you might be doing include to:

• Improve sales routes for sales reps in Nairobi
• Conduct strategic meetings with T1 and T2 supermarkets to list our product in their outlets
• Meet with finance to ensure smooth back-end operations and seamless stocking, and to ensure invoices and receipts match sales made with money in hand
• Source a UN or government agency tender contract and submit the application
• Present a year-to-date evaluation of our sales against targets, with learnings, for the Board
• Develop a back-to-school campaign with the marketing team

Qualities and qualifications include:

• You are all about rolling up your sleeves and get work done; you build out your team based on work you have done yourself
• You have at least 7- 10 years experience in a senior level position in sales, preferably in a FMCG environment; start-up or intrapreneur experience valued
• You bring a deep understanding of commercial markets (particularly for FMCGs) and fresh approaches to drive revenue growth
• You cultivate long-term relationships and leverage your networks to secure new accounts
• You understand and can create the instruments on the back-end to ensure sales has the infrastructure behind it to succeed
• You forge a diverse team, eliciting insights from them that might be contrary to your own for the betterment of the overall mission
• Creative and naturally curious; you are comfortable with complexity, and find unconventional solutions by thinking out of the box
• Making positive social change is a key driver for you
• You are not afraid to learn quickly, fail fast, and pivot to attain the bigger picture

Notes

• ZanaAfrica does not discriminate on any basis and applicants from all communities typically overlooked are especially encouraged to apply
• We use “she” as a gender-neutral term

• Participate and contribute to the strategic planning process for the company, providing direction with regard to sales, distribution, business development, brand visibility, product development, and customer experience to drive growth and profitability; singularly accountable to achieve sales targets and reporting monthly and quarterly on sales to the senior management and board of directors
• Establish activity and revenue targets across accounts and locations for the menstrual products sales teams, in respect to both traditional and NGO channels; ensure cost-effective distribution, brand recognition, and sales team trainings for strong return on investment of activities
• Carry out periodic reviews of market performance with the sales team and distributors to identify new competitor or market concerns, and new product or market opportunities, providing feedback and recommendations to company leadership team
• Lead the company’s sales change initiatives by continuously assessing the need for organizational or strategy change, championing change initiatives, and removing obstacles impeding constructive organizational change.
• Provide managerial leadership to Sales Operations team, proactively assessing back-end operations, inventory management, and instating sales performance management systems to ensure a healthy P&L

• Sales leadership
• Business strategy
• Sales growth
• Market insights
• Change management
• Back End Operations
• Team building
• Commercial market understanding
• Relationship cultivation
• Network leveraging
• Sales infrastructure development
• Team diversity
• Creative problem-solving
• Social change advocacy
• Adaptability

• 7 - 15 years relevant experience
• Fluent English and Kiswahili
• At least 7-10 years experience in a senior level position in sales, preferably in a FMCG environment
• Start-up or intrapreneur experience valued
• Deep understanding of commercial markets (particularly for FMCGs)
• Ability to cultivate long-term relationships and leverage networks
• Ability to create back-end instruments for sales success
• Ability to forge a diverse team and elicit insights
• Comfortable with complexity and unconventional solutions
• Driven by making positive social change
• Willingness to learn quickly, fail fast, and pivot