Country Manager at AstraZeneca

What You will do:
Responsible for leading the Business of Kenya for a diversified Innovative portfolio of AZ Biopharmaceutical Business Unit encompassing the products in Cardiorenal, Metabolic, Respiratory & GI. Supervises a group of District Managers and Executive District Managers. Has responsibility for delivering on P&L of overall geography. The focus is on business development and execution. Also Responsible for identifying business opportunities and developing talent for leadership positions.
Typical accountabilities will include:

• The primary responsibility would be to own & build the commercial strategy for the assigned market and deliver commercial objective & be a key driver of working with cross functions such as medical, marketing, sales force effectiveness and finance.
• Kenya Country manager would also be responsible for managing the sales forecast & inventory with distributors in Kenya. Candidate is expected to coach and lead a team of 4 FLMs & KAMs to achieve implementation of commercial activities, various stakeholders from Kenya including but not limited to various HC societies, industry associates and procurement entities such as public sector procurement agencies and faith-based institutions.

Manage team effectiveness and engagement:

• Hire & build a competent sales team and provide ongoing coaching, direction & motivation to a diverse team of individuals.
• Agree team and team member roles, performance criteria, objectives and standards of work execution and monitor performance on an ongoing basis. Identify areas requiring development; and offer coaching & guidance as required.
• Collaborate with Human Resources in the development of team members by providing challenging and relevant development opportunities to prepare them for future roles and building capability within Kenya and for other SSA markets.
• Ensure a competitive and opportunity driven placement of the sales team to ensure proper coverage in line with TA (Therapeutic Area) requirements & review the same from time to time.
• Ensure the coaching process is firmly entrenched. Assess coaching plans and reports submitted and provide input on implementation as required.
• Implement appropriate recognition and incentive schemes to align the team with SSA and company goals; effectively manage the incentive and reward scheme process to drive performance.
• Facilitate regional and interdepartmental participation, collaboration, interaction, communication, and support.

Provides input to develop strategic plans & leads execution of these plans:

• Owns and delivers the Kenya business plan as approved by Country Director- SSA to align teams with SSA and company goals; to own Kenya country strategic plan, define local strategies to maximise and consolidate market-share.
• Assess and prioritise commercial opportunities and works with medical & medical teams to deliver country tactical plan in line with country, customer, employees, and organizational needs.
• Support the commercial teams with market intelligence towards development of annual marketing plans & oversees the implementation of the marketing strategy in close collaboration with other functions/teams to deliver country top line and bottom-line sales.
• Represent AstraZeneca with key customers across priority Therapeutic areas, opinion leaders, leading healthcare societies and other identified stakeholders in the country.

Driving Operational Excellence & Compliance Agenda:

• Drive performance to ensure that country objectives and standards of performance are understood and owned by the team, anticipate, and remove obstacles so that teams can deliver results and succeed
• Ensure establishment of common purpose with distributors and manage delivery of distribution objectives to ensure availability of optimal inventory in the market.
• Consolidate feedback and forecasts from managers and provide quarterly forecasts on the budget and projected year end spend, market conditions and a thorough understanding the marketplace.
• Works in close collaboration with KAMs, Market Access and pricing teams to maximise the available growth opportunities in the market.
• Entrench a cost-conscious & compliance mindset among sales teams, monitor and ensure that key activities are delivered within budget, ROI framework & compliance frameworks!
• Ensure effective, accurate and co-ordinated systems are in place for monitoring and controlling the country’s performance against business plan and budget.
• Ensure team members utilise admin systems and meet admin requirements, ensuring accurate and current data availability.

Driving P& L for the country:

• Focuses on opportunities to derive top line growth.
• Drives the right product mix to drive profitability.
• Builds the right resource allocation to deliver on P&L

Essential Skills And Experience Required

• Must have a Completed Bachelor’s degree in Health Science
• Demonstrated leadership, communication, budget management, presentation and negotiation skills
• Minimum of 10 years working experience in the commercial pharmaceutical industry with 3+ years in a senior manager role in a people management function.
• A business qualification such as MBA would be an advantage
• Previous exposure and/or experience in other functional areas of the business such as Sales Training
• Strong knowledge and experience of the Kenya Pharmaceutical Sales environment
• A proven track record of sales management is essential for the incumbent.
• It’s also expected that the leader would further coach and empower Kenya sales teams and build AZ as a great place to work.