Cisco Nigeria Recruits General Manager

Cisco Nigeria invites applications from suitably qualified candidates for the job position of General Manager.

At Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) customers come first and an integral part of our DNA is creating long-lasting customer partnerships and working with them to identify their needs and provide solutions that support their success.

The concept of solutions being driven to address specific customer challenges has been with Cisco since its inception. Husband and wife Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, both working for Stanford University, wanted to email each other from their respective offices located in different buildings but were unable to due to technological shortcomings. A technology had to be invented to deal with disparate local area protocols; and as a result of solving their challenge – the multi-protocol router was born.

Since then Cisco has shaped the future of the Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for our customers, employees, investors and ecosystem partners and has become the worldwide leader in networking – transforming how people connect, communicate and collaborate.

Requisition #: R933156
Location: NIGERIA.LAGOS.LAGOS
Job Title: General Manager Region: EMEA
Area of Interest: Sales
Level of Experience: Experienced – Manager
Flexible Work Option: Yes
Job Description: GENERAL MANAGER – NIGERIA

Responsibilities:
Cisco Nigeria is looking for an inspiring leader, who sees it as a challenge to drive Operational Excellence in a very dynamic sales market place. The General Manager Nigeria leads the Cisco account team for English Speaking West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia) with heavy emphasis on the Nigerian market.

The General manager Nigeria will be responsible for:
- Country leadership
- Building and Managing profitable business
- Portfolio Management and strategic Marketing Skills
- Organizational Alignment and Focus
- Organizational productivity and leverage.
- Governance
- Industry presence
- Leading Change
- Managing Employee performance
- Managing Government relations
- Media and Press relations

Detailed definitions are provided in the appendix.

Specifically the General Manager will be responsible for:
- Driving an annual booking quota of plus 50 M$ in the first year with a with a stretch of 60M$.
- Inspiring and leading the Cisco Nigeria sales team (sales, technical staff, Channel
managers, support staff) to success.
- Implementing Cisco’s Operational Excellence Policies and Processes.
- Developing and executing a sales strategy and tactics that maximize Cisco opportunity
within the customer and partner environment throughout Nigeria for Service Provider/
Enterprise/ Commercial and Public Sector
- Along with sales planning, this position is responsible for accurate forecasting and
managing the Cisco Nigeria sales team.
- Direct customer contact and Cisco partner will comprise a major portion of this
assignment.
- Develop, manage and foster all necessary Cisco Partner relationships at the CEO level.
- The job will involve and require interactions with government officials and heads of
state. The role therefore not only comprises sales responsibility but also the
representation of Cisco at that level.
- The function includes the management of the direct reports and the host management
of the indirect reports based in the region.

Skills/experience required
The candidate will have to be able to demonstrate significant sales success in both indirect and direct sales environments. The candidate must be sales objective driven, and creating sales results will be the principle measure of performance.
Ideally, the candidate has more than 15 year of experience of ICT sales at the CEO level. The candidate has been exposed to International sales processes and can demonstrate successful implementation of corporate policies, procedures in Emerging markets.
Strong financial skills are a must.
Candidates must be fluent in English to be successful in this client-facing position. Great emphasis will be placed on the pro-active communications skills of the individual.
The candidate must be very structured, and able to enforce structure and work discipline into the team and the region.
Extensive knowledge of Nigerian and International (US/European) Corporate business
practices.
Experience in the Nigerian market place preferred
Has an in-depth understanding of the telecommunications and financial regulatory issues in the region
Understands that managing through influence and example is as important as management by direct control. This is particularly important as essential resources to the sales success, might not directly report to the General Manager or may even reside outside Nigeria.
The candidate must regard travel and spending time in Cisco operations outside of Nigeria (i.e. USA, Europe) as a crucial tool to understand Cisco’s policies, procedures, operational standards and best practices.
The GENERAL MANAGER will have strong relations with and be able to leverage the highest level of decision makers in the Nigerian Service Provider/ Enterprise (Oil and Gas, FSI)/ Commercial and Public Sectors

Individual characteristics/competencies:
Entrepreneurial, visionary, energetic, adaptable, open minded, keen to learn, keen to share, analytical grasp of issues, highly self-motivated, high degree of pressure tolerance, impressive communication skills, inspirational, decisive, people oriented, quality oriented.

Educational Background recommended
Typically requires a degree level education, 10-15 years related experience in technologies, solutions and applications. MBA or marketing qualification preferred

How To Apply:
Interested applicants should: Click Here To Apply Online