Commercial Director Job Vacancy – UpEnergy
Job Title: Commercial Director
Organisation: UpEnergy
Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda
Reports to: CEO
About US:
UpEnergy brings aspirational products that save energy and improve health within reach of low-income customers. We develop distribution channels that sell efficient and clean energy technologies. We finance our product subsidies and our growth via bespoke projects that generate carbon emissions reductions that we produce for global partners seeking emissions reductions and social impact co-benefits.
We sell products under our SmartHome brand, and through partnerships with other brands. We operate regional distribution hubs and build relationships directly with customers through the SmartHome sales operation. We’ve seen 100%+ year on year growth for many years and have reached over 800,000 African households with products that deliver health and income benefits. A typical Smarthome stove saves each family we reach about 9% of their annual income while reducing air pollution.
UpEnergy has a 10 year track record of building projects that overperform expectations in the generation of emissions reductions, and that deliver on our the energy savings promise to our customers. We are one of the largest developers by volume of projects focused poverty alleviation through energy savings and fuel switching. Our team has a collective 50 years of experience and is at the forefront of Paris-era project finance.
Job Summary: UpEnergy is at a time of exciting growth, expanding both in terms of product and geographic portfolio, and thus seeks a Commercial Director to lead commercial strategy and development in our markets.
This role will report to the CEO and the location is based in Kampala, Uganda with travel to the various UpEnergy markets.
Why Join Us?
A Unique Culture
UpEnergy encourages teamwork, creativity, and experimentation. We are not afraid to develop new project types, or to roll up our sleeves and tackle challenging operating environments. We stay close to our market, understand our customers, and have a lot of fun while doing our work!
Opportunity to do things in a new way
As a leader in a fast moving industry, our team is constantly evolving, iterating and learning how to improve our business. This means endless opportunities for a self-starter to initiate new ways of doing things or experimenting ways to help us improve.
Personal and Career Growth
At UpEnergy we value both personal and professional growth. We have built a culture of mutual learning and encourage our team to take on projects that expand their knowledge, expose them to parts of the business where they are most interested.
Create Lasting Impact
Our clean energy products bring positive impact to both our planet and the low-income communities we work in. We pledge to recycle revenue into the communities we serve and we work alongside our customers to make sure they benefit from our products.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Sales
Sales KPI Management
- Work with global and country team members to determine optimal sales strategies, goals and targets for each country in which we operate
Sales Team Structure
- Assist on the ground team members to build and maintain high performing sales teams. This would include optimizing for the sales org chart, compensation, training, etc.
Pricing
- Work with multiple departments to determine the optimal pricing strategy that adequately addresses business needs regarding unit economics (i.e. trade-off between volume and cost recovery)
Cost of Sale
- Work with countries at various stages of development to ensure products are being sold in the most efficient way possible
- Drive UpEnergy’s ability to share information across markets and adapt distribution models by country to achieve efficient sales
- Identify and develop solutions for areas of cost inefficiency in our sales operations
Operations
Distribution Networks
- Work with countries at various stages of development to build scalable distribution networks that are robust enough to scale in country, but optimize for efficiency
Manufacturing
- Collaborate across multiple departments to ensure UpEnergy is able to effectively manufacture the best possible product (optimizing across price, efficiency and durability) within country operations
Cost of Distribution
- Determine optimal way for stoves to be distributed across countries in the most cost effective manner possible given business needs
Strategy
Country Manager Support
- Provide strategic leadership to country managers in growing market operations and ensure alignment with global goals derived from carbon activities, financing and our company vision
Global & Country Alignment
- Identify, build and/or improve efficiency in communication and operating procedures between global and country functions
Project Economics
- Work with the global finance and leadership team to ensure that projects within the various operating countries are within budget and achieving desired financial outcomes. Further, the Commercial Director will work to identify potential challenges and coordinate the process of finding solutions across relevant departments
Nice to Have
- Familiarity with project finance and/or the development of energy or carbon projects.
- An understanding of customers and business development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Compensation:
The Commercial Director will receive a competitive salary and bonus.
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- The ideal applicant should have relevant qualifications, skills and experience
How to Apply:
Please send a customized cover letter highlighting your relevant experience, and the specific areas of UpEnergy’s work that most interest you, to jobs@upenergygroup.com.
The preferred location is an UpEnergy market in Africa though we can sometimes be flexible for fantastic candidates. The start date for this position is soon as possible.
Love UpEnergy, but looking for a different role?
If you don’t think this role is the right fit for you, but you identify with UpEnergy’s mission and values, why not check out our other openings or drop us a line? There are many ways to make clean energy products available to more communities, and if you are the right person to play a role in this mission, let’s stay in touch!
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