Role base: Nigeria
2 year contract to permanent
Salary per month: $2500 negotiable
Start date: Immediate
Benefits: Accommodation, medical, travel expenses, laptop, mobile phone, performance bonus

About the Company
The company is focused on bringing power to the un-powered; starting in Nigeria and potentially across Africa. With a population of 180M, an estimated 60% of Nigeria lives entirely without electricity. The high cost of connecting this vast populace to the national grid; combined with their low consumption needs, makes for an unfavorable economic situation. The solution to this is in microgrid and solar home systems. This is what our company aims to do for Nigeria and beyond.

Job Description
The Country Manager will play a unique role in shaping the company's activity in Nigeria’s highly dynamic and promising market. As a new entrant in the market, projecting to serve millions of customers, we are looking for an individual with an appreciation for both the business and human side of our operations. The company can only be successful with scalable business and operational systems and this position is key in designing, building, implementing, observing and improving these systems. Additionally, Nigeria is a very diverse country. So an understanding of the peculiarities of her different people, in her different regions is as important as the business side of things and will be vital to our success.

While the Country Manager will have sales support, it is vital that ultimate responsibility for sales can be taken for sales. There is no business, without sales, so strong focus must be given to this.

As our products target rural dwellers with low earning power, the financing models which we employ will be key to our success. The Country Manager must be able to find dynamic solutions that meet the needs of our customers while minimizing losses on unpaid systems to the company. ?Overall, this is a multi-faceted role where strong performance, focused people leadership skills, product and market knowledge is expected.
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The Country Manager will:
* Develop and coordinate the company’s product lines and offerings around varying sizes of solar home systems and solar mini-grid systems and any other products in response to the market needs.
* Create an organizational structure for the company
* Produce a business plan for the company with extra focus on operational planning, sales strategy, and financials
* Spearhead recruitment of company personnel.
* Develop the systems for running the company including accounting, IT, admin, personnel etc
* Maintain supplier relationships
* Maintain other stakeholder relationships
* Define our target markets
* Develop project and retail markets
* Create project development schedule, project proposals and quotes, project budgets and financial analysis for the company.
* Manage a highly motivated and sales performance focused team to meet and exceed the Nigerian customer requirements.
* Build and maintain relationships across the landscape of Renewable Energy stakeholders in the Nigerian market, including relevant regulators, legislators, and Renewable Energy market authorities to ensure compliance with local requirements.
* Represents the company externally with government, statutory/regulatory bodies, and business partners/allies.
* Develop and manage sales forecasting, reporting, and planning processes in line with the company's framework.
* Position Light Era for success beyond the Nigerian market.
* Identify means to reduce costs, minimize risks or increase the efficiency of solar installation projects.

Background
* Demonstrated performance of sales/business development in the Solar Energy market
* Experience in developing sales programs direct to consumers, through partners and projects.
* Experience in launching new energy-related business/products.
* Excellent communication and documentation skills in English
* Demonstrated ability for highly independent operation
* Ability to execute many tasks in parallel
* Ability to motivate a team around specific goals
* Ability to work in a cross-functional organization, working closely with engineers, business operations, sales, service, engineering and other groups.
* Deep passion for innovation in solar energy.
* Travel required.

Requirements
* A strong ability to understand complex business operations, business transactions, and credit requirements.
* Excellent interpersonal skills at all levels, including people-management, leadership and both written and verbal communication skills.
* Ability to be sensitive to cultural differences.
* Must be familiar with computer applications
- Word processing proficiency
- Spreadsheet proficiency
- Email
- Search
- Maps
- Any other applications - to be learnt as necessary
* Working knowledge of solar energy, battery systems, renewable power, and grid markets
* Excellent command of written and spoken English.