Country Manager & Sales Director - Africa at Hitachi Vantara

What you will be doing

This role will require a seasoned sales leader with demonstrated ability to create a sustainable, profitable company, demonstrating above market growth over the next 5 years.

• Acting as Sales and legal representative of Hitachi Vantara in South Africa with full sales responsibility for all countries in Africa
• Growing and leading our Sales organisation across Sub-Saharan Africa with responsibility for the orchestration of sales activities in target and install-based customer accounts
• Leading a solutions sales approach to identify opportunities that add value to our customers by helping them save money, make money or manage risk, leveraging our established and growing library of business outcome focused references
• Adopting a customer-centric role and acting as the senior representative for high level sales activities and customer/partner meetings
• Managing and understanding the multinational operating model and landscape of the region. Able to make and communicate a business plan both at a local level but also and EMEA level
• Setting sales goals and managing target allocation in alignment with Global and Regional strategy and policy and communicating progress against stated goals
• Driving rigour by leveraging recognised sales engagement methodologies and delivering best practice account planning, pipeline management and forecasting to nurture client relationships and maximise the opportunity value of accounts
• Leading South African country functions across Enterprise sales, Channel, Pre-Sales, Services and leveraging EMEA regional support from local Marketing, HR, Finance and Legal teams
• Establishing Hitachi Vantara as an employer of choice for Sales talent through inspiring leadership, market presence and leading the recruitment of critical roles in country
   

What you bring to the team

• A demonstrable track record of effective sales leadership; building, managing and driving sales teams to sustainable growth
• Excellent customer reputation and personal network of Enterprise and Commercial customers and business partners in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly within IT infrastructure
• Ability to understand and react to the technological requirements of diverse companies and markets whilst being results orientated with the ability to execute to a well-defined plan
• An ability to drive a performance culture, motivating the team to achieve success while embracing change, and positively influencing others to generate positive client outcomes
• Strong business and financial understanding, strategic planning ability and business foresight with the ability to manage complexity and ambiguity to drive plans to successful execution
• The ability to create a culture that inspires trust and collaboration and lead with integrity to support our values, showing respect to others and adhering to high ethical standards
• Thought leadership on future IT trends (Cloud, Big Data, IoT) and with knowledge of the South African partner (RSIs, SIs and distributors for IT infrastructure products) eco-system
• Natural communicator at all levels, with strong presentation skills with personable and empathetic qualities and high ethical standards