GENERAL MANAGER – NIGERIA

Requisition #:	R933156		Location:	NIGERIA.LAGOS.LAGOS
Job Title:	General Manager		Region:	EMEA
Area of Interest:	Sales		Level of Experience:	Experienced - Manager
Flexible Work Option:	Yes
Job Description:	GENERAL MANAGER – NIGERIA Responsibilities: Cisco Nigeria is looking for an inspiring leader, who sees it as a challenge to drive Operational Excellence in a very dynamic sales market place. The General Manager Nigeria leads the Cisco account team for English Speaking West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia) with heavy emphasis on the Nigerian market. The General manager Nigeria will be responsible for: - Country leadership - Building and Managing profitable business - Portfolio Management and strategic Marketing Skills - Organizational Alignment and Focus - Organizational productivity and leverage. - Governance - Industry presence - Leading Change - Managing Employee performance - Managing Government relations - Media and Press relations Detailed definitions are provided in the appendix. Specifically the General Manager will be responsible for: - Driving an annual booking quota of plus 50 M$ in the first year with a with a stretch of 60M$. - Inspiring and leading the Cisco Nigeria sales team (sales, technical staff, Channel managers, support staff) to success. - Implementing Cisco’s Operational Excellence Policies and Processes. - Developing and executing a sales strategy and tactics that maximize Cisco opportunity within the customer and partner environment throughout Nigeria for Service Provider/ Enterprise/ Commercial and Public Sector - Along with sales planning, this position is responsible for accurate forecasting and managing the Cisco Nigeria sales team. - Direct customer contact and Cisco partner will comprise a major portion of this assignment. - Develop, manage and foster all necessary Cisco Partner relationships at the CEO level. - The job will involve and require interactions with government officials and heads of state. The role therefore not only comprises sales responsibility but also the representation of Cisco at that level. - The function includes the management of the direct reports and the host management of the indirect reports based in the region. Skills/experience required The candidate will have to be able to demonstrate significant sales success in both indirect and direct sales environments. The candidate must be sales objective driven, and creating sales results will be the principle measure of performance. Ideally, the candidate has more than 15 year of experience of ICT sales at the CEO level. The candidate has been exposed to International sales processes and can demonstrate successful implementation of corporate policies, procedures in Emerging markets. Strong financial skills are a must. Candidates must be fluent in English to be successful in this client-facing position. Great emphasis will be placed on the pro-active communications skills of the individual. The candidate must be very structured, and able to enforce structure and work discipline into the team and the region. Extensive knowledge of Nigerian and International (US/European) Corporate business practices. Experience in the Nigerian market place preferred Has an in-depth understanding of the telecommunications and financial regulatory issues in the region Understands that managing through influence and example is as important as management by direct control. This is particularly important as essential resources to the sales success, might not directly report to the General Manager or may even reside outside Nigeria. The candidate must regard travel and spending time in Cisco operations outside of Nigeria (i.e. USA, Europe) as a crucial tool to understand Cisco’s policies, procedures, operational standards and best practices. The GENERAL MANAGER will have strong relations with and be able to leverage the highest level of decision makers in the Nigerian Service Provider/ Enterprise (Oil and Gas, FSI)/ Commercial and Public Sectors Individual characteristics/competencies: Entrepreneurial, visionary, energetic, adaptable, open minded, keen to learn, keen to share, analytical grasp of issues, highly self-motivated, high degree of pressure tolerance, impressive communication skills, inspirational, decisive, people oriented, quality oriented. Educational Background recommended Typically requires a degree level education, 10-15 years related experience in technologies, solutions and applications. MBA or marketing qualification preferred Apply Now Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer Cisco is an E-Verify employer. E-Verify is an Internet based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA) that allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees in the United States. Please click on the following links for more information.