Country Director

Job Title: Country Director

Department: Country Team

Reporting Line: Regional Country Director

Location: Cotonou, Benin

Job Grade: 20

About ENGIE Energy Access

ENGIE Energy Access is the leading Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGo) and mini-grids solutions provider in Africa. The company develops innovative, off-grid solar solutions for homes, public services and businesses, enabling customers and distribution partners access to clean, affordable energy. The PAYGO solar home systems are financed through affordable instalments from $0.19 per day and the mini-grids foster economic development by enabling electrical productive use and triggering business opportunities for entrepreneurs in rural communities. With over 1,800 employees, operations in nine countries across Africa (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Benin), over 1.9 million customers and more than 9 million lives impacted so far, ENGIE Energy Access aims to impact 20 million lives across Africa by 2025.  

www.engie-energyaccess.com    

www.linkedin.com/company/engie-africa  

Job  Purpose/Mission 

ENGIE Energy Access (EEA) is looking for an experienced and mission-driven leader to for our operations in Benin. You should be hungry to make an ambitious pitch for a scaled and sustainable model for our successful solar home system (SHS) and nascent mini-grid products in the Benin market. You have the skills and passion to take an already high-performing team to new heights, and to solidify our market-leader status as we break into new verticals and optimize our business model over the coming years.

As the Country Director in Benin, you are ultimately accountable in country for all aspects of EEA Benin’s work including SHS and mini-grids. You will own the opportunity of leading and growing a high-performing team of over 200 (including a young and vibrant leadership team) and further scaling and diversifying our business by building out the operations for optimal geographical coverage of Benin, consolidating and leading our mini-grid business, developing government relationships, and ensuring the business’s long-term strategic and financial sustainability.

Responsibilities:
Strategy Development and Implementation

• Develop and implement the multi-year strategic vision and annual country business plan, aligned to the overall EEA strategic plan for both Solar Home Systems and Mini-grids.
• Drive business model innovations/evolutions that result in improved customer engagement, better repayment, and reduced bad debt for both SHS and mini-grid businesses.
• Iterate and create a country-centric business model that has the ability to acquire hundreds of thousands of customers on an annual basis while driving to YoY profitability growth.
• Gather insights to inform scalable, profitable, and sustainable commercialization strategies in subsequent years.
• Participate in business development projects by contributing all necessary data and validating assumptions.
• Continuously monitor company performance, product fit and pricing, marketing, sales, distribution, portfolio health, technical integration, and service with potential partners, as well as customer experience and country-specific customer insights.
   

Leadership and Management

• Provide strong, visible, and inspirational leadership to Benin’s management team including SHS and mini-grid leaders thereby delivering bottom line business results.
• Build a world class team that loves what they do and embodies our culture.
• Build a culture of performance and accountability to execute against goals.
• Lead management team in the resolution of operational challenges and contribute towards the creation of new and innovative solutions.
• Lead the development of a sustainable team structure to support the operational requirements of the business.
• Oversee the recruitment, development, retention, and engagement of all team members in Benin in collaboration with the HR department.
• Act as custodian of succession plan development and implementation to support the growth of people within the organization.
• Lead, coach, and mentor direct reports to foster personal growth and teamwork.
• Manage the administration of direct reports through the approval of leave, subsistence, and travel expenses.

Finance Management and Operations Oversight

• Manage the country P&L for Solar Home System and mini-grid businesses, drive performance, challenge spend, and lead changes to deliver higher value.
• Own and manage Country performance management dashboard and financial model for both SHS and mini-grid.
• Provide oversight in financial management matters of the country operations, ensuring compliance with the overall company’s procedures and external best practice as well as donor and regulatory requirements.
• Develop and effectively execute the country resource allocation plan, using insights and a focus on opportunities, priorities, and capabilities for business growth.
• Monitor cash flow to ensure effective cash management.
• Oversee all operations in Benin including construction of mini-grid sites, development of SHS distribution networks, inventory management, etc. to ensure successful completion of projects, protect health and safety, and reduce loss.   
• Monitor operational risks through the management of a comprehensive risk framework to assess risks and devise risk mitigation plans.

Health, Safety, and Security

• Responsible for Health, Safety, and Security for all activities in the country.
• Champion and maintain a culture of Health, Safety, and Security compliance, ensuring accountability throughout the organization for the safety of our staff and contractors.
• Accountable for ensuring compliance by all teams in Benin to all EEA and ENGIE Group Health, Safety, and Security requirements.
• Accountable for ensuring compliance by all teams in Benin to EEA and ENGIE Group Cyber Security requirements.

Ethics

• Adhere strictly to Engie's Ethics Charter, encompassing ethical conduct, conflict resolution, compliance with laws and regulations, and anti-wrongdoing standards.
• Demonstrate ethical leadership by upholding the highest standards of integrity, corporate responsibility, and ethics, ensuring compliance with internal policies and external regulations.
• Oversee the implementation and enforcement of ethics policies, report any violations promptly to the CEO and Head of Ethics, actively engage in ethics training, advocate a zero-tolerance stance against unethical behavior, and foster a culture promoting ethical conduct within the organization.
• Ensure accurate financial and audit reporting and that all potential contractors complete an ethics due diligence.

Stakeholder Management

• Locate, initiate, develop, and execute on key partnerships initiatives that can assist in distribution, branding, customer acquisition, and scale.

• Own and ensure that EEA Benin maintains productive relations with all external stakeholders and partnerships (i.e., telcos, government, tax authorities, industry organizations, banks, multilaterals, donors, etc.)
• Represent the country programs to authorities, donors, partners, and other relevant forums.

• Engage with Group Executives on country operational matters and in the provision of input into high level strategy.
• Participate in Country Board meetings and engage with shareholders and local chairpersons.

• Strengthen EEA’s position nationally and regionally.
• Leverage and collaborate with global team and other country leads for insight and support.

At EEA, we have high expectations for our managers. Each manager plays a key role in creating an exceptional experience not only for our customers but for every person on our team. Our managers help EEA realize our ambitious goals while developing their own leadership skills and facilitating growth for their direct reports. 

We believe that great managers:

• Deliver ambitious results: As a high-performing and accountable leader, you create an enabling environment for effective action and bold decision which contribute to successful delivery of results.
• Act with integrity: As an ethical leader you are honest, respectful, objective, and transparent. You create and build upon a foundation of trust and openness.
• Inspire and mentor the team: As an inspirational leader you walk the talk. You empower and coach your team with trust and humility.
• Are accessible: as an accessible leader, you develop and maintain deep connections with stakeholders through approachability and active listening.
• Ensure diversity and inclusion: as an inclusive leader, you ensure diversity and foster a sense of belonging.

Knowledge and skills 

 Experience:

• 12-15 years in a senior leadership role in a growing business of a reasonable size in B2B and B2C contexts
• Strong GM experience, P&L responsibility, and orientation
• Sales, Marketing and Consumer-oriented
• Multi-channel sales distribution experience e.g., door to door, in-house retail, third party retail, partnerships, Telesales)
• Experience representing a large and leading commercial multinational entity to both internal and external partners and authorities
• Government and Labor stakeholder engagement experience
• Experience of managing budgets and multiple stakeholder’s contracts
• Proven commitment to accountability practices and knowledge of quality assurance systems
• Experience with rural African Markets and financial services highly beneficial
• Experience with sales oriented integrated operations in renewable energies sectors is preferred
• Outstanding analytical skills and ability to synthesize analysis into practical strategy recommendations.
• Understanding of asset & non-asset based business models and economics.
• Experience with multi-entity governance.

Qualifications:

• A holder of a minimum master’s degree in Business Administration or equivalent in a relevant field

Language(s): 

• English
• French

 Technology:

• Experience in technology required for the role.

We thank all applicants for their interest, however due to the large volume of applications we receive, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

ENGIE is an equal opportunity employer, promoting diversity and committed to creating an inclusive environment for all. All applications are screened based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without any regard to origin, age, name, sexual identity, orientation or preference, religion, marital status, health, disability, political opinions, union involvement or citizenship. Our differences are our strengths!