Head of Commercial, South Africa

Role Description

The Head of Commercial South Africa is responsible for all elements of the FNZ South Africa business with a clear focus on delivering greater value to the established customer base and the future growth of the business.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Representing FNZ in the South Africa market with existing customers prospects market participants service providers and regulators.
• Delivering the South Africa P&L in line with or ahead of the budget and as part of the FNZ Group budget.
• Leading an effective robust and cohesive matrixed senior leadership team who champion employee engagement by growing high performance teams instilling trust and driving results through our people.
• Delivering long term value generation in the South Africa business in line with the 3 year plan.
• Continuous development maintenance and execution of new sales in the South Africa market.
• Matrixed ownership and accountability for FNZs client facing project delivery teams working on existing and new platform implementations.
• Harnessing the power of the global FNZ engine building credible relationships at all levels and leveraging key stakeholders to deliver results in South Africa.
• Assume responsible person accountability for our local regulatory licences within a matrixed reporting with the Risk & Compliance function.
• Oversee transparent relationship management of our Regulators ensuring sound governance and risk management practises are in place for FNZ to remain compliant with all regulatory requirements.
• Reporting clearly and effectively to the Board and the FNZ Group Executive Committee.

Specific Role Responsibilities:

Strategy

• Drive sales strategy business development and sales activity for expanding existing customers and new customers in the South Africa market.
• Lead commercial and contracting discussions and sponsor the on-boarding of new customers.

Financial Performance

• Drive a detailed understanding of the South Africa PandL and customer profitability and work with the South Africa Senior Leadership Team to make necessary adjustments to drive increased profitability.

Customer Implementation and Enhancement Projects

• Matrixed ownership of customer engagement resources including project management project governance business analysts customer QA technical and proposition consultants.
• Accountability for delivery on time and in line with project budget.
• Interface with the Technology Operations and Delivery function to ensure delivery of projects.

Account Management

• Expand our footprint within South Africa promote FNZs solutions and position the firm as the partner of choice for wealth management platform services.
• Delivery of world class account management function to ensure successful operating and strategic multilayered relationships with customers.
• Manage growth of South Africa business via existing FNZ customers.

Sales

• Primary responsibility for sales to new and existing South Africa customers that meets or exceeds South Africa budget.
• Continue to develop the South Africa sales strategy that considers sectors segments and specific opportunities.
• Interface with the Group Chief Commercial Officer & Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa and the Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa Senior Leadership Team Group Head of Growth and other FNZ Global staff on key strategic sales.
• Determine and appraise prospects establish a pipeline of business with financial institutions and convert this into sales.
• Work with the Finance and Commercial teams to develop win/win commercial proposals and present contracts that ensure risks are identified and mitigated.

Proposition Design

• Provision of South Africa specific input into the FNZ product roadmap and overall proposition design.
• Build a detailed map of FNZs existing product suite and how it compares to our direct competitors and the wider financial services software and technology sectors.
• Use available information and insight to drive proposition development sales and growth in conjunction with our existing customer Strategic Account Plans.

Regulatory Engagement

• Oversee relationship management of our Regulators with the upmost importance and professionalism.
• Assume responsible person accountability for our local regulatory licences.
• Trusted engagement with the FNZ South Africa Board fulfilling all responsible person requirements and effective reporting to all relevant stakeholders.

People Leadership and Employee Engagement

• Provide leadership direction setting and effective management to Direct Reports both matrixed and direct.
• Champion the people engagement strategy for all staff across South Africa
• Actively demonstrate and embed a continuous improvement culture and values
• Drive teamwork and collaboration across departments
• Engender trust loyalty and commitment throughout the team.
• Be an active member of the South Africa Leadership team and contribute to setting and executing the strategic plan

Performance Assessment

Performance will be assessed in line with:

• Achievement of monthly quarterly and annual financial targets set via the budget
• Achievement of revenue and growth targets
• Achievement of the 3 year plan objectives
• Quantitative customer KPIs
• Qualitative feedback from direct reports via 360 review process and groupwide staff surveys

Formal feedback will be provided through:

• Monthly business review process
• Annual performance review

Experience Required:

• Proven leadership qualities and ability to build constructive relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Able to operate at multiple layers within customer organisations from detail driven at lower levels to strategic at upper levels.
• Confident and able to take initiative given Customer and delivery-focused environment.
• Evidence of successfully managing financial plans and a PandL.
• A strong understanding of the industry investment products including tax infrastructure software development and support functions.
• A strong network across the C suite/Exec level of our target audience of financial institutions who are mid to large sized banks wealth managers life insurers asset managers workplace pension providers etc.
• Have a high level of understanding of country and regulatory principles and rules.
• Degree/qualification in a relevant discipline.
• High level of self-awareness and emotional intelligence possessing strong leadership communication and influencing skills.
• Sound commercial skills
• Strong organisational and prioritisation skills
• Ability to work under pressure multitask and meet set deadlines.
• Fluent in English with fluency in Afrikaans an advantage

#LI-BM1

About FNZ

FNZ is committed to opening up wealth so that everyone everywhere can invest in their future on their terms. We know the foundation to do that already exists in the wealth management industry but complexity holds firms back.

We created wealths growth platform to help. We provide a global end-to-end wealth management platform that integrates modern technology with business and investment operations. All in a regulated financial institution.

We partner with the worlds leading financial institutions with over US$2.2 trillion in assets on platform (AoP).

Together with our clients we empower nearly 30 million people across all wealth segments to invest in their future.