Job Details

Location: Dubai, UAE
Territory: Middle East & Africa
Reports to: Group Chief Executive Officer
Direct Reports: Regional Sales Directors, Business Development, Key Accounts, Commercial Operations and Strategic Partnerships
Employment Type: Full-Time, Executive Leadership

ABOUT THE ROLE

Our client is an established industrial and energy solutions business undergoing an ambitious period of expansion across the Middle East and Africa.

The organisation is seeking a commercially sophisticated Chief Commercial Officer – MEA to lead revenue growth, market expansion, strategic accounts, partnerships and commercial transformation across the region.

The CCO will be responsible for building a commercially scalable platform capable of supporting significant growth while improving revenue quality, margins, customer retention and market penetration.

The role combines strategy, sales, business development, key-account leadership, partnerships, pricing and commercial transformation.

THE MANDATE

The executive will be expected to:

1. Accelerate profitable regional growth.
2. Strengthen the commercial organisation.
3. Increase penetration of strategic markets.
4. Develop major customer and government relationships.
5. Build a stronger regional pipeline.
6. Improve pricing and commercial discipline.
7. Develop strategic partnerships.
8. Diversify revenue sources.
9. Strengthen forecasting and commercial intelligence.
10. Create a scalable MEA commercial model.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Commercial Strategy

• Develop the MEA commercial strategy in partnership with the CEO and Board.
• Define priority markets, customer segments and strategic opportunities.
• Assess market attractiveness using economic, competitive, regulatory and customer considerations.
• Develop market-entry strategies for new countries.
• Identify opportunities for geographic and product diversification.
• Translate long-term strategy into annual commercial plans.
• Establish clear revenue, margin and market-share targets.

2. Revenue Growth

• Take executive accountability for regional revenue growth.
• Develop and manage a balanced sales pipeline.
• Improve conversion rates across the commercial funnel.
• Establish appropriate sales coverage models.
• Identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities.
• Increase share of wallet among strategic accounts.
• Develop mechanisms for identifying and recovering lost business.
• Ensure commercial growth is sustainable and margin-accretive.

3. Strategic Accounts

• Personally manage relationships with selected strategic customers.
• Build executive relationships with CEOs, government officials, procurement leaders and other decision-makers.
• Establish regional key-account strategies.
• Develop multi-year account plans.
• Lead negotiations for major contracts.
• Protect strategic relationships during commercial disputes or service challenges.
• Establish customer-retention strategies for high-value accounts.

4. Business Development

• Identify and qualify major business-development opportunities.
• Lead complex bids and commercial proposals.
• Oversee tenders and large-scale contract negotiations.
• Develop relationships with EPC contractors, developers, distributors, governments and strategic investors.
• Build a network of regional commercial partners.
• Evaluate joint ventures, alliances and distribution agreements.
• Ensure commercial opportunities are subjected to rigorous financial and strategic assessment.

5. Pricing & Margin Management

• Establish regional pricing principles.
• Strengthen price governance and approval processes.
• Monitor competitive pricing intelligence.
• Analyse customer and product profitability.
• Reduce unnecessary discounting.
• Improve contract economics.
• Work with Finance to develop margin-management dashboards.
• Ensure growth does not come at the expense of commercial quality.

6. Market Expansion

• Lead expansion into selected African and Middle Eastern markets.
• Develop country business cases.
• Evaluate local competitors and market structures.
• Determine appropriate routes to market.
• Develop local partnerships where direct market entry is not optimal.
• Establish market-launch plans and milestones.
• Monitor post-entry performance and adjust strategy accordingly.

7. Commercial Transformation

• Modernise the regional sales organisation.
• Introduce CRM discipline and pipeline governance.
• Improve sales forecasting accuracy.
• Establish consistent opportunity-management processes.
• Use analytics to identify market and customer opportunities.
• Introduce commercial performance dashboards.
• Evaluate AI and automation opportunities across lead generation, forecasting and customer management.

8. Government & Institutional Relationships

• Build senior relationships with relevant government ministries, authorities and public-sector institutions.
• Understand procurement, infrastructure and energy-policy developments affecting the business.
• Identify strategic public-sector opportunities.
• Support government engagement around major projects.
• Represent the company at high-level industry and policy forums.

9. Commercial Risk

• Ensure commercial contracts appropriately manage financial, legal and operational risks.
• Partner with Legal and Finance on major agreements.
• Strengthen contract governance.
• Ensure appropriate credit and payment terms.
• Monitor customer concentration risk.
• Establish escalation mechanisms for major commercial disputes.

10. Leadership

• Build a high-performance MEA commercial organisation.
• Recruit, develop and retain senior commercial talent.
• Establish clear individual and team targets.
• Develop succession plans.
• Coach regional sales leaders.
• Build stronger collaboration between Sales, Operations, Finance, Product and Strategy.
• Create a culture where sales growth is balanced with profitability and customer value.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

The CCO will be measured against:

• Regional revenue growth
• Gross-margin growth
• EBITDA contribution
• New-business revenue
• Pipeline value and quality
• Pipeline conversion
• Strategic-account retention
• Customer acquisition
• Market share
• Average contract value
• Pricing realisation
• Sales-cycle duration
• Forecast accuracy
• New-market revenue
• Partnership-generated revenue
• Customer concentration
• Commercial cash conversion

IDEAL EXECUTIVE PROFILE

The ideal candidate will have:

• 15–20+ years of commercial leadership experience.
• Significant MEA experience.
• Experience in energy, infrastructure, industrial solutions, engineering, technology-enabled industrial services or another complex B2B environment.
• Proven regional P&L or revenue accountability.
• Experience selling complex solutions rather than transactional products.
• Demonstrated experience with government and large institutional customers.
• Strong contract-negotiation experience.
• Exposure to strategic partnerships, JVs or market-entry programmes.
• Experience leading teams across multiple countries.
• Strong financial and commercial acumen.

What will distinguish the successful candidate

The organisation is looking for someone who can move beyond “sales leadership” into true enterprise commercial leadership.

The successful candidate will understand how to connect:

Market Strategy → Customer Need → Commercial Proposition → Pricing → Contract Economics → Delivery → Customer Retention → Profitability.