Job Title: Country Manager - DRC, Congo B and Gabon
Level: L4
Reports To: Commercial Director or GM
Context/Scope:
Diageo is a global organisation with over 28,000 dedicated people and a presence in 180 countries. Across our 21 markets, our brand portfolio represents our biggest strength and our biggest passion. Be it our global giants, local stars, or premium brands, we use our vision, creativity, and courage to drive the growth of our products worldwide. We invent strong brands for today and for the future, upholding the quality of our products and taking personal accountability for the history and future of our brands.
African businesses account for over 10% of Global Diageo revenue, with a workforce of more than 6,000 employees. We build wealth directly through our operations and indirectly through our broader value chains, where we support development and growth in partnership with businesses and communities.
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We are committed to delivering a balanced performance, and our vision is to be the destination of choice for Diageo investment. We are building a track record of attracting, retaining, developing, and exporting outstanding diverse talent for Diageo and fuel people to deliver great performance. We are a force for good in communities and care about the planet with a focus on water, farming, and education, among others, which are the most critical components for our communities.
Today, Africa is a predominantly beer region, and we will continue to grow beer fast. We also recognise an even greater opportunity in spirits and recently reorganised our business to put focus on redefining and accelerating spirits to double its current revenue through the Southern, West and Central Africa (SWC) organisation.
Purpose of Role
The role is responsible for all aspects of the Spirit business in the country/location-supply forecasting and strategy/business delivery through the direct team, the distributor partner,
Specifically, the role will involve managing the distributor/partner, Premium Core business development managers, and the entire process of growing and developing premium core spirit brands in the market. It is also responsible for any other objectives related to the sales and growth of Premium Core spirit in the market. This will also include delivering on the significant compliance agenda.
The role will involve building the capability of the Diageo team and the Distributor sales organisation in accordance with the Diageo Way of Selling.
Top Accountabilities
Externally focused Commercial Strategy Development and Execution
- Uses a strong understanding of the external environment to drive the creation and execution of a clear and powerful commercially driven strategy for Premium Core brands.
- Unlocks consumer and shopper insights to generate breakthrough performance and Market share growth.
Relationship Management with key External and Internal partners and Influencers
- Influences and leads cross-functionally to define and achieve Premium Core objectives, aligning relevant Customer and Consumer Marketing teams with the Distributor & the Channel-focused sales teams to deliver shared outcomes.
- Lead distributor engagement sessions to get collaborator ownership and delivery of Premium Core objectives.
- Skilled in developing distributor and customer collaboration and dedication, negotiating for win-win outcomes.
- Skilled in establishing and maintaining industry customer relationships supporting our reputation and leadership agenda in Premium Core.
- Influence distributor partner on territory mapping, Sub distributor appointment and other sales enablers where and when vital
Brilliant Execution
- Clarity in the deployment of programmes and tools that improve balanced profit for the Premium Core business, including trade terms, pricing strategy, promotional efficiency (NRM)
- Able to identify and prioritise the highest value-creating activities with swift, effective decision-making.
- Effectively balances short- and long-term performance goals in planning, implementing, and evaluating activity.
- Responsible for outcomes across cross-functional teams with highly influential skills vital
- Coaches and trains the Diageo and distributor/partner teams on Sales fundamentals and Premium core brand-building elements to develop the category through excellent execution.
Direct and Indirect First-Class Team Management
- Accountable for delivering the industry's ‘outstanding' sales field team, always ahead of the competition.
- Must ensure that the premium core agenda gets its fair consideration across the entire organisation through top-class communication, networking and presentation skills
- Champions compliance and ethics in business delivery with zero tolerance of non-compliant behaviour across Diageo and distributor partner premium core organization.
Performance Management
- Accountable for setting, agreeing, supervising and achieving the Premium core financials through the business from top-line volume sales to net revenue to marketing contribution level, leading all the financial levers available, including brand retail pricing, trade investment and consumer marketing spend, making key priority decisions between brands and channels to deliver the goals
- Reports back to business on progress to annual goals with activity to rectify where vital on a monthly basis.
- Drive accountability with distributors via strong tracking methodology (JUBP sessions, morning meetings, clear critical metrics, POSM management structure, etc.).
- Planning & Strategic Business Reviews with Distributor partner.
- Define & Establish commercial important metric for distributor partner selling organization.
- Proficiency in French is critical
Qualifications, Experience, and Leadership
- This role leads the Diageo entity end to end in the relevant country and therefore, experience in senior leadership position, with focus on governance, controls, and strategy into execution is critical
- Minimum 10 years' experience in Sales, Trade Marketing & Sales Operations
- Strong commercial and financial planning and decision-making skills, including channel profitability and targeted trade investment management.
- Cross functional experience across Commercial/Marketing
- Exceptional relationship skills: proven track record to network and influence across functions and levels.
- An understanding of competitors, distributors and key customers, and what it takes to win in the spirit market.
- Understands how to bring to bear key drivers to improve business performance.
- Exceptional relationship skills: proven track record to influence across functions and levels, both internally and externally.
- Authentic communicator with experience working with external collaborators; superior presentation skills.
- Business qualification will be advantageous.
- Cross-functional experience advantageous
- FMCG experience advantageous.
- An expert coach and trainer of both functional and leadership capability development
- Proficiency in French is critical
Flexible Working Statement:
Flexibility is key to our success. From part-time and compressed hours to different locations, our people work flexibly in ways to suit them. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you so that you're supported from day one.
Rewards & Benefits Statement
We recognise and value performance, offering our people a highly driven Rewards and Benefits package
Diversity statement:
Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a critical part of this.
We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you'll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You'll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.
Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.