Customer Growth Director SSA

Customer Growth Director SSA – Mars Snacking Join Mars Snacking as the Customer Growth Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, where you'll drive commercial expansion across one of Africa's most dynamic regions. In this pivotal senior leadership role, you'll translate consumer and retail insights into scalable growth strategies that strengthen our iconic snacking brands—from confectionery to salty snacks and cereals—across Traditional Trade, Modern Trade, and Digital Commerce channels. Working closely with the General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa and the broader Africa Business Team, you'll lead a talented customer growth team, forge strategic partnerships with major retail players across the region, and unlock sustainable profitable growth. Your enterprise-wide commercial perspective will be essential as you champion initiatives that drive availability, customer conversion, and return on investment across diverse retail environments. What We're Seeking You'll bring extensive FMCG commercial leadership experience—ideally 15 to 20+ years of progressive responsibility in sales execution, customer development, category strategy, and joint business planning. A bachelor's degree is required, with an MBA or advanced qualification in Business Administration or a related commercial field strongly preferred. Your background must include deep market knowledge across Sub-Saharan Africa and hands-on capability in navigating Traditional Trade route-to-market strategies, Modern Trade partnerships, and emerging Digital Commerce opportunities. You'll demonstrate proven mastery of multi-market budget management, owning customer, shopper marketing, and display budgets while optimizing commercial ROI. Strong people leadership defines your approach—you've successfully built, inspired, and developed high-performing teams while fostering inclusion and personal growth. Above all, you're a strategic thinker with sharp business acumen and executive presence who translates complex market insights into retail execution and influences key stakeholders. Your Key Responsibilities Lead the SSA customer growth agenda by guiding your team to develop and deliver efficient, profitable, and sustainable commercial expansion plans across Sub-Saharan Africa. Drive in-store and digital excellence through execution of Intelligent Perfect Store and Perfect Digital Store programs, Transaction Zone initiatives, and shopper activations that boost on-shelf conversion and product availability. Convert shopper, channel, and market insights into high-impact category and display solutions, working closely with regional sales teams and service partners. Oversee customer, display, and shopper marketing budgets across SSA with rigorous measurement and ROI evaluation. Collaborate actively with Growth, Marketing, and Demand Planning teams to feed market intelligence into regional innovation, forecasting, and brand strategies. Contribute as an active member of the Africa Business Team, advancing business objectives, organizational capability, and Mars culture throughout the region. What Mars Offers You'll join a purpose-driven organization with over 130,000 diverse and talented Associates guided by the Five Principles. Access best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including Mars University. Enjoy an industry-competitive salary and benefits package with company bonus, all while building the world we want tomorrow, today.