General Manager Central Region at The Heineken Company

Purpose of the job

• As the overall accountable person for the region, develop and drive Strategic plans for the Region as well as drive a High-performance culture. Provide clear and consistent leadership to the regional team in delivering against targets.
• The GM is accountable for ensuring the growth of HEINEKEN Beverages portfolio to customers within a specific geographical area and within various Channels, and to create consumer pull to assist the company in achieving its strategic and financial objectives.

Key Responsibilities

Implementation and achievement of regional strategy:

• Develop and define the Regional Business Strategy and align to HEINEKEN Beverages performance goals – creating a competitive advantage for the OpCo.
• Rigorous execution of plans, including mitigation plans where necessary, to ensure value-add to customers
• Deliver regular proposals to refine and optimize the customer experiences.
• Business Plans executed on time in full to deliver against defined volume and revenue/profit targets.
• Consistent achievement of targets in terms of budget, cost and profitability growth
• Manage a budget for the region and ensure that all expenses are within budget.
• Designing Plans in collaboration with Trade Marketing and oversee implementation

Customer Focus

• Implement a sales management process to assist the sales team in identifying and prioritizing key customers and prospects.
• Engage with potential and existing customers within the region to present company offerings, build brand awareness and grow sales.
• Build and maintain relationships with key customers and partners, including distributors, retailers, and hospitality venues.
• Monitor and analyse sales data to identify trends and opportunities for growth.
• Ensure that all sales activities comply with all relevant laws, regulations, and company policies.
• Ensure that sales teams meet sales targets and that all sales activities are conducted in a professional and ethical manner.
• Monitor the performance of the sales team and motivate members to meet or exceed sales targets.
• Manage, coach and provide overall guidance to the sales teams.
• Analyse customer feedback, market trends and competitor activities and formulating strategies to respond accordingly.
• Achieve set volume, value, and gross income targets on strategic focus brands.
• Build a strong pipeline and ensure accurate sales forecasting and account planning.
• Coordinate with other teams to ensure smooth delivery of products and services.

Improving regional and business effectiveness and resource management and deployment

• Business Plans executed on time in full and deliver or exceed promised results.
• Systems and Processes are optimized and improved in ways that delivered productivity gains year on year.
• Deviations and trends timeously detected and revealed when found, and action plan for recovery/improvement implemented
• Ensure that the Region complies fully with governance/audit/risk requirements.
• Signed contracts and service level agreements meet good governance standards.
• Work procedures and processes are aligned and improved to ensure smooth flow of work across units.
• Effective problem-solving and decision-making to achieve high quality turnaround times, productivity and motivation.
• Achieve and maintain effective relationships with internal and external stakeholders
• Clear communication of vision and strategy to team.
• Continuous improvement and transfer of best practices
• Route to Market capability
• Negotiation

Leadership

• Ensure that the Region complies fully with governance/audit/risk requirements.Signed contracts and service level agreements meet good governance standards.Work procedures and processes are aligned and improved to ensure smooth flow of work across units.
• Effective problem-solving and decision-making to achieve high quality turnaround times, productivity and motivation.
• Build effective and positive working relationships with customers and relevant stakeholders to achieve results.
• Trust and confidence developed with manager, direct reports, peers and other department members.
• Champion HEINIEKEN Beverages Sustainability and Responsible Alcohol initiatives in region, together with Corporate Affairs teams.
• Business strategy understood, owned and delivered.
• Effectively communicated and engaged with organization, energizing entire business around strategic business drivers, and how that translates in region.
• Company values lived by self and regional team.
• Champion a climate and culture that directly contributes to achieving business results.
• Build a high-performance team, manage performance, and proactively address underperformance.
• Manage and improve diverse talent bank and leadership pipeline.
• Champion appropriate organization initiatives and integrate projects to unlock value and growth.
• Champion continuous improvement and shared best practices with other business leaders.
• Route-to-market talent to help develop a sophisticated understanding of buyer behaviors and
• to navigate the growing complexity of omnichannel.
• Demonstrate the skill to achieve beneficial results while considering both organizational
• priorities and stakeholder requirements. Expertise in negotiation to build strategic alliances and
• facilitate successful collaborations that promote sustainable growth for the organization
• Sales leaders of the future will be faced with far greater complexity. They will need to lead
• cultural change in the sales function, demonstrating the following characteristics: empathy, collaboration, flexibility, curiosity, daring

Job Requirements

Education

• A formal tertiary qualification (Degree/Diploma) in Sales/Marketing/Retail with a sound understanding of financial concepts and profitability analysis.
• Postgraduate ideal

Experience

• Minimum 10 years’ relevant Sales & Marketing experience, ideally across FMCG
• Strong communication and above-average presentation skills
• Decision- making and project management skills
• Superior commercial acumen
• Strong and inspiring leader of people
• Understand and execute the Sales processes
• Good product knowledge across all segments - Wine, Spirit, Beer and RTDs
• Strong negotiating and influencing skills
• Flexible and able to operate in a diverse market
• Must have the ability to develop customer relationships
• Must be able to identify opportunities for improvement and change
• The ability to build and maintain strategic business partnerships
• Must be innovative and self-driven
• Demonstrated ability to establish winning trade relationships