General Manager, Mountain Region

What we’re looking for;

In keeping with our current business needs, we are looking for a person who meets the criteria indicated below

Reporting to the Director Sales & Distribution, the role purpose is as highlighted below;

Role purpose:

The General Manager, Mountain Region, is accountable for driving the overall commercial performance and long-term growth of the business within the assigned region. This role develops and executes localized strategies and business plans aligned to the broader organizational objectives, ensuring the delivery of revenue targets, market share growth, and subscriber performance metrics including gross additions, churn reduction, and net adds.

The role is responsible for establishing, managing, and strengthening strategic partnerships and stakeholder engagements across the region, ensuring the effective execution of Joint Business Plans that support the achievement of the regional mission. A key focus is on expanding and optimizing the distribution infrastructure by forging strong relationships with distributors, dealers, and other ecosystem partners to improve product availability, customer reach, and service excellence.

The General Manager Mountain Region embeds a robust route-to-customer (RTC) model, ensuring efficient and scalable market coverage while continuously enhancing customer acquisition and retention strategies. Through the execution of front-line marketing initiatives and localized campaigns, the role ensures consistent growth in market share and reinforces the organization’s competitive positioning by building and sustaining a strong competitor footprint within the region.

In addition, the role provides strategic and operational leadership across a diverse portfolio that includes sales, marketing, emerging markets, Financial services, Fixed business, technology and human resources. It ensures cross-functional alignment and collaboration to deliver integrated business outcomes, drive operational excellence, and build high-performing teams.

The role also embeds a strong safety culture that proactively minimizes incidents, driven by high levels of awareness, clear accountability, and consistent adherence to established safety protocols.

The role also has an accountability for Risk, Governance & Control Ownership, to embed and maintain effective risk, governance, compliance, and control practices within the function by proactively identifying and mitigating operational, regulatory, financial, people, technology, and reputational risks. Ensure adherence to internal policies, regulatory requirements, audit actions, and enterprise governance frameworks while driving accountability, ethical practices, and a strong controls environment across all areas of responsibility.

Ultimately, the General Manager, Mountain Region, is responsible for translating strategy into execution, leveraging data-driven insights, and fostering a performance-driven culture to deliver sustainable business growth and a strong market presence within the region.

Regional Business Development, Strategy & Execution

• Develop and implement a localized regional strategy aligned with overall business objectives
• Translate national targets into actionable regional plans
• Drive penetration of 4G+ in trade.
• Continuously assess market dynamics to refine strategies
• Leverage on intelligence to deliver segmented propositions and care to drive customer consideration and satisfaction.
• Align regional priorities with commercial goals
• Track and monitor performance against strategic objectives
• Adjust plans proactively based on performance insights
• Collaboration with all business units to deliver care & commercial growth.

Business Planning & Performance Management

• Lead the development of comprehensive regional business plans
• Set and cascade clear performance targets across teams
• Monitor revenue, subscriber, and market share performance
• Drive accountability for delivery of KPIs across the region
• Conduct regular business reviews and performance tracking
• Implement corrective actions to address performance gaps
• Ensure disciplined execution of commercial plans

Partnership & Stakeholder Management

• Build and maintain strong relationships with key regional partners
• Develop and execute Joint Business Plans (JBPs) with partners
• Align partner objectives with organizational goals
• Identify and onboard new strategic partners
• Manage partner performance and drive accountability
• Resolve escalations and strengthen collaboration
• Leverage partnerships to unlock growth opportunities

Distribution, Network Expansion & Optimization

• Expand and strengthen partner distribution infrastructure to ring-fence our competitive advantage and growth
• Reposition the distribution model to effectively and efficiently deliver micro segment.
• Identify underserved areas and improve coverage
• Optimize distributor and parter performance
• Ensure availability of products and services across channels
• Improve efficiency of distribution operations
• Monitor stock levels and reduce stock-outs
• Drive scalability of distribution models

Route-to-Customer (RTC) Management

• Embed Digital First Intelligent last-mile delivery and service accessibility
• Drive adoption of Digital Sales tools & platforms to drive efficiency and effectiveness in trade, franchise, Retail and Agent networks
• Secure by design (Risk, compliance, governance and control) in the journeys for the partners and trade ecosystem.
• Drive hyper-personalized journeys, smart selling and automated operations and real-time insights that boost sales efficiency, experience and growth.
• Embed effective route-to-customer strategies within the region
• Deliver & embed Retail as experiential centres that drive customer interaction across multiple products and solutions.
• Ensure optimal channel mix and coverage
• Standardize RTC processes across the region
• Continuously enhance channel productivity
• Leverage data to optimize customer access points
• Monitor RTC effectiveness and make improvements

Sales Growth & Subscriber Performance

• Deliver Converged & Fintech solutions to drive Customer value
• Achieve Merchants & Fixed Customer growth & revenue.
• Deliver regional sales and revenue targets
• Drive subscriber gross additions through acquisition initiatives
• Implement strategies to reduce churn rates
• Achieve net subscriber growth targets
• Monitor sales funnel and conversion rates
• Identify and capitalize on upsell and cross-sell opportunities
• Ensure consistent pipeline of customer acquisition

Market Share Growth & Competitive Positioning

• Strengthen the organization’s market presence in the region
• Develop strategies to counter competitor activities
• Build a strong competitor footprint and positioning
• Track competitor performance and market trends
• Identify differentiation opportunities
• Drive initiatives to increase market penetration
• Ensure sustained growth in market share

Frontline Marketing Execution

• Implement localized marketing and promotional activities driven by market intelligence
• Strengthen and enforce internal controls & governance in customer marketing operations.
• Drive customer acquisition through targeted campaigns
• Ensure brand visibility across the region
• Align marketing initiatives with sales objectives
• Monitor campaign effectiveness and ROI
• Adapt campaigns based on market feedback
• Support product launches and activations

Cross-Functional Leadership & Alignment

• Lead and coordinate activities across sales, marketing, HR, and operations
• Ensure alignment of cross-functional priorities
• Facilitate collaboration between internal teams
• Drive execution of integrated business initiatives
• Resolve cross-functional challenges effectively
• Promote a unified approach to regional delivery
• Ensure consistent communication across stakeholders

Leadership & Talent Development

• Coach, mentor, and empower the leadership team to drive strategic excellence, collaboration, and disruptive thinking.
• Embed Safety culture by driving awareness, ownership and accountability.
• Deliver & embed Agile in Regional Operations to drive shared outcomes across the organization to enable commercial intensity.
• Drive diversity, inclusion, and leadership bench strength, ensuring succession readiness for pivotal roles within the function.
• Build critical capabilities through targeted hiring and continuous learning programs.
• Embed OKRs and a performance-driven culture, aligning incentives to strategic impact, and innovation.
• Champion cross-functional collaboration across Safaricom to ensure integrated delivery of products.
• Lead change management for major shifts (new operating models, and innovation platforms) with clear narratives, stakeholder engagement, and adoption tracking.
• Foster a culture of agility and experimentation, encouraging teams to pilot emerging technologies, new business models, and disruptive solutions.
• Model ethical leadership and values, reinforcing integrity, transparency, and responsible innovation in all strategic decisions.
• Ensure governance and compliance in all initiatives, safeguarding organizational reputation and stakeholder trust.
• Champion adoption of emerging technologies (AI, IoT, cloud, blockchain) to enable disruptive innovation and digital transformation.

Must-have technical / professional qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Commerce, or a related field
• Master’s degree (MBA or equivalent) is an added advantage
• Minimum of 8-12 years’ experience in Sales, Distribution, or Commercial roles
• Proven experience in leading regional or multi-territory operations
• Strong track record of delivering sales growth and market share expansion
• Demonstrated experience in managing distributor, dealer, and partner networks
• Experience in developing and executing business and commercial strategies
• Solid understanding of route-to-market and distribution models
• Proven ability to manage and grow subscriber/customer base (acquisition and retention)
• Experience in executing frontline marketing and trade activation initiatives
• Strong financial acumen with experience in budgeting and performance management
• Experience working in cross-functional environments (sales, marketing, HR, operations)
• Demonstrated leadership experience with the ability to manage and develop high-performing teams
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with data-driven decision-making capability
• Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation, and relationship-building skills