Job Details
Job Description
Job Title: Commercial Manager
This position bridges upstream customer acquisition and downstream integration and go-live, with a strong focus on commercial profitability, technical coordination, and strategic onboarding.
- Location: Cape Town, / Johannesburg South Africa (Hybrid)
- Function: Commercial
- Reports to: Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
Role Purpose
The Commercial Manager leads the onboarding, and monetisation of upstream clients, including Tier 1 retailers, banks, and other high-volume resellers of the company’s digital products (airtime, data, electricity, vouchers, bill payments). This role serves as a strategic “traffic controller”—orchestrating go-live readiness across technical integration, commercial agreements, compliance, and support frameworks. It ensures that clients go live fast, profitably, and sustainably.
This role works hand-in-hand with the Customer Experience Manager, translating commercial opportunities into execution, while maintaining a rigorous focus on profitability, integration quality, and cross-functional delivery.
Key Responsibilities
- Client Commercialisation Strategy
- Own the commercial lifecycle from deal sign-off to monetisation, ensuring the business captures full commercial value.
- Onboarding & Integration Leadership
- Lead the integration and onboarding of new large partners, coordinating across Product, Tech, Ops, Legal, and Compliance.
- Commercial Viability & Pricing
- Design pricing models and cost structures with Finance to ensure margin sustainability and commercial fit per channel.
Technical Enablement
- Translate commercial and CX requirements into technical briefs. Work closely with tech & product teams on integration readiness.
Delivery Oversight
- Chair weekly readiness forums to track onboarding status of key accounts. Anticipate and unblock bottlenecks.
- Commercial Forecasting & Pipeline Management
- Collaborate with Sales to turn pipeline opportunities into integrated, active clients. Monitor monetisation post-launch.
Channel Economics & Revenue Attribution
- Develop commercial performance dashboards, tracking ARPU, margin, and time-to-revenue per partner.
Key Competencies
- Relationship Management- Influences senior clients and internal teams to drive coordinated onboarding success.
- System Design - Shapes the functional onboarding blueprint in collaboration with Product and Tech.
- Financial Management- Defines pricing strategies, margin targets, and commercial feasibility of partner models.
- Measurement and Metrics- Owns reporting and metrics around onboarding timelines, profitability, and conversion.
- Project Management - Oversees project delivery across teams with clear timelines, escalation routes, and accountability.
- Systems Integration)- Oversees the client-side technical integration with APIs, platforms, and transactional systems.
- Stakeholder and Change Management)- Aligns cross-functional stakeholders to deliver fast and effective commercialisation.
Experience & Qualifications
- 8–10 years in fintech, Tech, FMCG, payments, or enterprise software.
- Proven experience in partner onboarding, technical integration, and commercial contract execution.
- Strong understanding of digital channels, B2B2C models, and reseller networks.
- Ability to interpret APIs, system flows, and technical documentation.
- Advanced skills in Excel, CRM, dashboards (e.g., Salesforce, Power BI).
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, or similar. MBA advantageous.
Behaviours & Values
- Operates at the intersection of strategy, technology, and execution.
- Strong project owner: holds timelines, aligns stakeholders, drives accountability.
- Commercially astute and customer-centric.
- Hands-on, solution-focused, and unafraid to “get into the detail.”
- Skilled at managing ambiguity and trade-offs.