Sales and Operations Director, Electric Business

About the role

Burn is looking for a commercially driven, results-oriented leader to head its electric business across Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Ghana and future markets. The role drives cross-market sales growth, profitability, operational excellence and project delivery, while keeping collections, customer usage, agent productivity and service quality strong. It requires strong commercial leadership, a proven track record in multi-market consumer distribution and at least 25% travel.

Key responsibilities

• Co-create and deliver the electric business strategy, leading sales, quality and P&L across the current markets and new ones, and holding each market to its forecast, channel mix, collections and cost-to-serve
• Provide a weekly cross-market view of volume, revenue, margin and operating cost, and support entry into new markets
• Keep repayment efficiency above 90% of PAYGO sales, average usage above 1.2kWh, agent productivity above 30 sales per agent per month and compliance metrics, and make gaps visible within the week
• Own the SOPs, SLAs and field operating standards, last-mile execution, stock point SLAs and after-sales performance, and surface risks and opportunities to the Senior Director
• Own the active project portfolio end to end, give every unassigned project a named owner and a plan, and report project status to the Senior Director
• Manage and develop direct reports, build bench strength beneath country leads and identify a credible successor in at least one market
• Act as the single point of contact between country teams and HQ functions (sales and planning, logistics, finance, risk, carbon, product and software), including software prioritisation input
• Hold delegated signing authority for field disbursements, cash advances, commissions and operational contracts, and represent the business with regulators, partners and funders

Required profile

• 5+ years of commercial leadership, including direct line management of country-level leaders in more than one market
• Experience running consumer distribution at scale in Africa, ideally with a PAYGo or consumer-credit element
• Proven delivery against operating metrics across more than one market
• Track record of running a portfolio of concurrent projects to completion, with the judgement to stop underperforming ones
• Ability to hold people accountable to numbers across cultures and time zones, and to decide rather than coordinate
• Able and willing to travel at least 25% of the time
• Exposure to carbon-financed or grant-financed business models; matrix organisation experience