Commercial Executive

Permanent

Midrand

Overview

We are a Supply Chain and Sales & Merchandising partner adding value to your business through a fully integrated, temperature-controlled network in Southern Africa.

But we are also more than that. We are people serving people. While we boast the best in tech and infrastructure, our people are our greatest resource. With our skilled, curious, can-do people at the forefront, our assets become your assets, our service your solutions.

Vector’s vehicle fleet includes a food industry first in ‘multi-temperature’ vehicles enabling the company to service business across frozen, chilled and ambient temperature zones on a single delivery.

Job Purpose

• To provide strategic commercial and financial leadership, driving sustainable growth, profitability and long-term business performance.
• Act as a strategic partner to Executive, Customer and Operations leadership teams and supporting the delivery of Vector's strategic objectives.
• Drive customer and principal value creation through commercial insight, pricing excellence, contract management and relationship development.
• Identify, evaluate and enable growth opportunities that enhance revenue, market position and competitive advantage.
• Ensure effective cost management, financial performance tracking and profitability optimisation across the business.
• Provide commercial governance and risk management oversight to support sustainable and responsible business growth while supporting innovation, business development and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Leverage commercial, operational and financial insights to improve decision-making, operational efficiency and value creation across the logistics value chain.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Contribution

• Lead the development and execution of Vector's commercial strategy to drive sustainable revenue growth, profitability and long-term business value
• Build and maintain strategic relationships with key customers, principals and business partners to strengthen customer retention, growth and service excellence.
• Identify and evaluate new business opportunities, market segments, partnerships and service offerings that support business growth objectives.
• Provide leadership on pricing strategy, customer profitability, contract negotiations and commercial decision-making
• Oversee the commercial opportunity pipeline, ensuring robust governance, financial evaluation and alignment to strategic priorities.
• Lead commercial risk management activities, ensuring contractual, financial and operational risks are identified and appropriately mitigated.
• Leverage commercial analytics and digital solutions where appropriate, to identify trends, improve decision-making and unlock growth opportunities.
• Drive innovation and sustainability initiatives that create competitive advantage, enhance customer value and support Vector's long-term growth ambitions.
• Support the commercialisation of sustainability and ESG initiatives that create customer and business value.
• Evaluate commercial opportunities arising from technology advancements, sustainability trends and evolving customer requirements.
• Promote continuous improvement and business transformation initiatives across the organisation.
• Ensure that assigned and agreed strategic targets are operationalised and achieved.
• Drive the provision of strategic commercial and Operations financial support and constantly evaluate alignment and execution against Business requirements.

Customer and Principal Growth

• Develop and execute customer and principal growth strategies aligned to business objectives.
• Build executive-level relationships with strategic customers and principals to drive retention, growth and long-term partnership value.
• Identify opportunities to expand services, improve customer profitability and increase share of wallet.
• Lead customer business reviews and facilitate strategic engagement with key stakeholders.
• Drive customer-centric solutions that strengthen Vector's competitive position and support sustainable growth.
• Monitor market trends and customer requirements to identify new revenue opportunities.

Budgeting and Forecasting

• Oversee national operations costs to ensure the optimal utilisation of budgets Coordinate and control the entire Company’s budget process and delivery within deadlines.
• Prepare the operations budget and forecasting timetable
• Ensure that expense budgets are based on agreed economic indicators.
• Oversee the consolidation of the budget input from the various businesses and sense check reasonableness.
• Consolidate and coordinate the Capex budget within agreed parameters.
• Review the consolidated results of the budgeting and sales forecasting processes, including volume and distribution revenue analysis.
• Provide insight and interpret the impact of key cost drivers on profitability at a leadership level.
• Liaise with the project steercom regarding the prioritisation of projects based on return on investment, risk etc. and for guidance on the Capex budget and forecasts.
• Report summarized budget in the required format to the Executive team.
• Prepare and present executive summary and ensure that the final budget document / presentation reflects the strategic intent and adequately communicates the year’s ‘story’ and explains major variances.
• Review the monthly reports detailing customer and principal sales and performance and engage with the senior leadership of the Business regarding any opportunities.
• Report on a regular basis on actual KPI’s versus budget and work with regional teams to address areas of non-conformance or concern proactively and timeously.
• Implement and encourage cost management initiatives across the regional teams where these do not impact on long term business sustainability.
• Ensure that strategic business risks are mitigated within budgetary constraints through the allocation of spend to areas of high priority across the regions.

Customer Pricingand Contract Oversight

• Oversee the provision of pricing support to the Customer Director for the successful conclusion of annual price negotiations that meet profitability objectives.
• Review consolidated performance data and reinforce engagement with the Business leadership and customers/principals regarding opportunities relating to, among others, improved efficiencies and incentives.
• Oversee contract and service level agreement management by the Commercial and Finance teams ensuring compliance with the agreed commercial aspects contained therein.

Activity-Based CostingModel Oversight and Profitability Analysis

• Oversee the functionality and accuracy of the activity based costing model and leverage its information to guide the business on pricing decisions, efficiency opportunities and cost containment.
• Provide meaningful profitability information by customer and principal across all business units.

New Project Appraisal and Feasibility Assessment Oversight (Business Cases)

• Oversee the appraisal and feasibility assessment of all new projects and efficiency initiatives and provide strategic commercial insight.
• Oversee project costing for accuracy and profitability.
• Proposal Management : Oversee the Commercial input for responses to proposal requests from potential principals or customers ensuring compliance with proposal requirements and alignment with the business strategy.

Capital Investment

• Lead the commercial input for all new investment opportunities.
• Lead the preparation of Capex motivations to support sustainable investment.
• Report and provide recommendations regarding profitability.
• Lead the reporting of post implementation reviews to the business.

Commercial Insight and Technical Expertise

• Oversee calculations, analysis and associated recommendations emanating from any and all queries that arise as a result of changes in business operations, the economic climate or potentially might offer more profitable solutions.
• Provide expertise to executive team and to internal clients and recommend solutions based on insights and findings.
• Provide practical and strategic commercial expertise and insights to external customers and principals as part of regular engagement or ad hoc requests.
• Provide strategic commercial insight for new projects including the application of financial modelling tools such as discounted cash flows to evaluate the financial benefits and payback of new projects.
• Lead the preparation of motivations for Capex’s including presentations to the Exec team and Board.
• Provide strategic commercial insight in the implementation of projects related to Operations.

Financial and Commercial Reporting

• Perform comparative analyses of results to budget, forecast and last year to test accuracy and reasonableness.
• Provide input to EXCO for commentary on monthly reports.
• Drive the operationalization of opportunities for value added reporting to improve the quality and content of reporting and message management.

Staff Leadership

• Lead, develop and inspire a high-performing commercial team aligned to Vector's values and strategic objectives.
• Manage performance, succession planning, talent development and employee engagement to ensure sustainable capability and leadership continuity.
• Encourage a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement and customer focus.
• Ensure compliance with all relevant labour legislation, employment practices and company policies.
• Build multidisciplinary capability and encourage knowledge sharing, innovation and professional development across the team.
• Manage staff leave and general time management in line with organisational deliverables and standards. Manage and deliver on succession plans to enable the development of a future generation of leaders and specialists and ensure optimal turnover and retention levels are maintained.
• Champion staff training and development through the utilisation of available training opportunities or contributing to the development of new training solutions in collaboration with national training specialists.
• Conduct regular performance appraisals with subordinates. Lead the team towards meeting the strategy and targets through regular communication and utilisation of the full organisational talent management tool set.
• Conduct regular meetings and ensure that records and action plans are maintained and shared across the team.

Key Relationships

Internal

• Vector Board
• Customer team
• Operations management
• Regional and shared service finance teams
• Sales team
• Vector procurement team

External

• Legal representatives
• Auditors
• Existing and potential customers
• Principals and Customers Suppliers

Qualifications And Experience

Qualifications, Skills and Experience Required for the Job

• Minimum Qualification : CA or CMA
• 15 years’ experience, including commercial costing, operational financial support and reporting.
• SAP experience would be advantageous as would exposure to a supply chain/FMCG/ logistics environment.
• People management and cross functional engagement.
• Strong proficiency in SAP, BW or similar reporting systems, Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, reporting dashboards and commercial management tools.
• Knowledge of South African transport, logistics and supply chain regulatory requirements will be advantageous.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to balance revenue growth, customer value and profitability.
• Excellent negotiation, presentation and executive stakeholder engagement skills.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to translate market opportunities into actionable commercial plans.
• Strong analytical capability, including pipeline analysis, customer profitability reviews and pricing assessment.
• High level of resilience, urgency and accountability in a competitive logistics environment.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with operations, finance, procurement, fleet and customer service teams.
• Strong leadership capability with the ability to motivate teams, manage performance and build a result-driven culture.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Skills and Competencies

• Financial modelling, feasibility studies and investment appraisal.
• Commercial and strategic analysis.
• Problem solving, decision-making and analytical thinking.
• Strategic influencing and negotiation.
• Verbal and written communication, presentation and stakeholder engagement.
• Relationship management and customer engagement.
• Advanced computer literacy (MS Office, particularly Excel and PowerPoint).
• Commercial acumen and organizational awareness.
• Innovation, continuous improvement and lateral thinking.
• Ability to leverage technology and data-driven insights.

We look forward to hearing from you!