Head of International Sales

Internal Job Title: Head of International Sales
Business: Lucy Electric UK Ltd
Location: Thame, United Kingdom, Remote #LI-REMOTE
Job Reference No: 3421

Position Overview:

The Head of International Sales is the focal point of the International Team (formally the Export Team), responsible for creating and executing an international sales strategy which will ensure Lucy Electric UK secure profitable business in their designated overseas sales territories.   Working with the International Sales Manager, Regional Manager – East Africa and their teams, the Head of International Sales will assimilate views, data, and trends to create and communicate a clear consolidated view of the various markets within the LEUK territory, including social, political and environmental trends and direction, competitor activity, government regulation and regional agreements, likely to impact future business.

Job Context:

Lucy Electric UK are responsible for a broad range of overseas territories and countries, including the Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean.  Within the Sales Team there is an International Team based both in the UK and regionally who’s role is to drive Sales both directly to end users and through agents, distributors, and our Licensed Solutions team.The International Team is one of three main segment teams making up the overall LEUK Sales Team – the other two being the Industrial Team and the Utility (DNO) Team.   All three Teams are supported by the Tendering Team and have a designated Tendering Engineer assigned to them.

Job Dimensions:

This role will report to the General Manager – Sales, the role and will have 2 direct reports as well as a matrixed report from the Tendering Team.

This role is a ‘player manager’ position, you will be directly responsible for a territory or territories as well as managing and leading the International Team which consists of a UK based International Sales Manager and a Kenya based Regional Manager. The International Sales Manager currently has 2 part-time contractors based in West Africa who report into them and the Regional Manager – East Africa heads up a team of 3 employees (2 direct and 1 indirect) all based in Kenya.

The role will be home based with regular visits to Lucy Electric offices in Thame and of course to our customers and offices throughout our International Sales Territory.

Key Accountabilities:

Create and follow dedicated and focused plans for existing, and emerging/new customers and sectors in line with the Company’s 5-year strategic Medium-Term Plan (MTP)
Provide input to and then work to annual Sales Budgets and Targets
Research, investigate and identify potential new areas for business development and growth in relation to new and existing products and services
Preparation of tenders with the assistance of the product specialists and tendering resource.
Preparation of monthly sales forecasts and reports, collating input from the International Team and taking ownership of the international sales forecast in LEUK SIOP reviews.
Gain appropriate Client approvals or specification for projects.
Work in conjunction with the General Manager - Sales and colleagues to ensure that ad-hoc reports and summaries are produced as and when necessary. Support / underpin meetings and decision-making process in relation to territory, customer focus, new or existing products and services.
Assisting with the preparation of budget pricing information, proposals/quotations/tenders in conjunction with colleagues and where appropriate and within time scales.
Participate in regular performance discussions, this will be on-going process throughout each year and not solely confined to an annual appraisal meeting.
Implement special projects from time to time as requested by the General Manager - Sales

Account and Territory Strategy and Management:

Formulate and follow a dedicated & focused business strategy for LEUK’s international markets ensuring it is in line with the Lucy Electric 5-year strategic plan (MTP).
Develop and maintain account plans for all major international customers and communicate the plans to the wider business to ensure unity of direction and focus.
Identify and recruit agents, distributors and licensees, work with our Legal and Commercial teams to establish and maintain agreements.
Compliance - Work with Group Legal  and the LEUK Contracts Risk Manager to ensure we carry out the necessary compliance checks on our customers, agents and distributors, ensuring effective records and audit trails are kept and maintained.
Prepare action plans by individuals as well as by team for effective search of sales leads and prospects and follow up the same with the International Sales Manager and Regional Manager – East Africa.
Conducts a review with all internal teams to build more effective communications, to understand training and development needs with the focus to productivity and effectiveness, and to provide insight for the improvement of company’s sales and activity performance via sales intelligence to enter new markets and/or to acquire new customers.
Work with neighbouring Lucy Electric regional offices - Lucy Electric South Africa, Lucy Electric Middle East (North Africa) to coordinate sales activities, share market intelligence and support exhibitions, seminars, and customer events.

Promotion, Marketing support and Market Intelligence:

Assimilate views and information on specific markets and customer requirements plus keep abreast with product developments.
Work with the BDD Renewables to help identify opportunities and new contacts to further grow the Renewables market in this Lucy Sales Region.
Feed back market intelligence to the regional and global Marketing Teams on customer and competitor activity, pricing and lead times.
Work with the regional marketing team to select, organise and attend regional trade shows, exhibitions and events as necessary
Work with Group Treasury to identify international funding opportunities for markets and /or market segments and use these as levers to secure profitable business with targeted customers.  Develop commercial relationships with UK Government depts. such as the Dept of International Trade and UK Export Finance and use them to support our business growth strategies.
Team Management:

Lead, inspire, motivate and drive the Team to deliver high levels of both personal and team performance.
Manage team performance through setting annual performance and development objectives, following Group guidelines on setting, alignment and monitoring of objectives.
Work with the Team to ensure forecasting is carried out accurately and on time, whilst being the ‘go-to’ person for any queries relating to international SIOP forecast.
Identify training needs on both an individual and team basis and then develop training plans in Oracle utilising in-house approved training resources where possible.  Ensure the Team’s skillset and knowledgebase keeps pace with both market and product changes and developments
Monitor resource and identify headcount requirement, and in collaboration with the HR Business Partner and General Manager – Sales, input those requirements into the annual workforce planning process.

Essential Skills & Experience:

It's essential that you come from an electrical background.
Previous experience of work African markets is must for this position.
Proven experience of working with government utilities within the African markets.
A strong, proven sales background.

Does this sound interesting? We would love to hear from you. Our application process in quick and easy. Apply today