General Manager (KSA/GCC)
Freudenberg Household & Cleaning Solutions (Vileda) - Market leader FMCG household cleaning products
Total years of experience :20 years, 3 Months
Handing a full operational organization with more than 100 people and branches across KSA. On top, I was responsible for the business in the GCC region which is being handled by business development managers.
Integration
Lead and manage the integration of the acquired distributor (KSA company) to the company’s international standards.
Stakeholders Management
Lead the board meetings and heading business review sessions with stakeholders (local and head office).
Lead the P&L official alignment with stakeholder upon finalizing with financial auditors.
Relationship management with key service providers of the company.
Organizational Development & Design
Assess the structure and set adjustments/changes to the existing organization to improve efficiency in the company and build departments.
Conduct a capability study on the management team to set develop plans for key managers and implement structural changes when needed.
Financials
Being fully responsible for P&L of the company to ensure delivering and improving the aligned bottom line.
Assess cost centers and setup plans to reduce costs and increase efficiency while ensuring the implementation of the set plans.
Close control of company working capital through reducing collection cycle and further increasing payments cycle to suppliers.
Successfully implementing the VAT implementation in KSA.
Changed all financial reporting to IFRS standards.
Successfully planned the e-invoicing phase I on time in KSA.
Sales & Marketing
Set a sales and marketing strategies in alignment with the global direction to develop the Saudi business.
Directed a full Route to Market (RTM) strategy for the sales team.
Revisit contracts with the key accounts to reduce TBM/A&P spending.
Setup plans to activate/grow potential customers
Setup a marketing department to shift the company from a sales-oriented company to a marketing oriented company.
Activated key research data (Nielsen, Flyer data, consumer insights) in order to setup/compare the plans from a marketing perspective.
Supply Chain
Implemented Sales and Operational (S&OP) process in the company and established the demand planning concept.
Shifted the operations to Third Party Logistics (3PL) to reduce complexity, costs and improve efficiency.
Revisited the delivery business model through a vans efficiency study which resulted in externalizing the delivery function to third party.
HR
Improved recuitment process to ensure hiring the right candidates and reduce average vacancy times.
Adjusted local policies to reduce employees retention and improve corporate culture.
Set plans with HR team to improve our Saudization quota.
Lead a diversity and inclusion committee as part of the global direction and setup a plan to improve the female recruitment levels in the company.
IT
Assess existing systems to ensure better utilization and improve different system integration
Improve efficiency through changing processes
Ran an ERP shift project to implement SAP for the KSA operations.
Compliance
Conduct sessions with local management team to assess company in preparation for a corporate audit.
Implemented a signature guideline to avoid any noncompliant practices
Enforced control systems to avoid/reduce wrong bookings/preparations.
Distributors management
Handle business relationship with the GCC distributors through periodic meetings, strategy setting sharing and having a close eye over the sales and marketing development.
Assessment of distributors and conduct distributor changes when needed
Setting up strategy for the region/by country
Categories in Charge: Oils, Fats, Culinary (Tomato Ketchup, Mayonnaise), Ice cream, Pasta, Frozen
Food, Personal Care
Strategic:
Create a full Route to Market (RTM) strategy for Jordan.
Setup growth strategy by category.
Setup annual budgets & plans by category & source.
Sales & Distribution:
Achieve primary and secondary sales targets by category.
Monitor the right distribution & coverage levels by channel.
Conducting monthly & quarterly business reviews to assess situation per channel & category, workout
solutions to opportunities while ensuring the action plans are being executed.
Monitor & evaluate planned & unplanned marketing activities and provide guidelines for activities &
promotions.
Monitor & analyze prices & activities of competition in market to.
Launch new categories in the market (Pasta & Frozen Food) by assessing market
situation/pricing/opportunities & workout/monitor launch plans execution.
Align launches/promotional guidelines with category team.
Monitor stocks & orders by source & category while tracking shipment to ensure adequate stock
levels while closing targets.
Conduct periodic market visits & ensure proper action plans are in place.
Meet retailers to discuss activities, conduct business reviews and assess possible growth opportunities.
Setup the launch for FCS (Field Capability Score) & OSA (On Shelf Availability) projects
Develop distributor team capabilities
Financials:
Setup & maintain price structures.
Manage budgets & spending to ensure budgets are spend within the category alignment and no
overspending takes place.
Ensure payments transfers on time.
Have balanced statement of account by category.
Analytical:
Analyzing retail audits & sellout data from retailers to setup action plans accordingly & ensure market
share gain
Setup proper reporting system to track sales, activities, stocks, orders and budgets.
January 2013 - Present LEVANT (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine) & Egypt
January 2012 - January 2013: LEVANT & Egypt
January 2011 - January 2012: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq
Being a regional manager, my job covers several areas:
Sales:
Prepare OP targets & plans.
Achieve net sales to trade & export sales targets by country. Monitor the right distribution & coverage levels by channel through continuous market visits & maintaining the proper on shelf availability by category.
Open new markets if needed. This requires a full intensive study of the market, evaluating & choosing the right distributor, assessing competition in trade, judging trade itself, building a penetration strategy and a sustainability strategy in addition to train the distributor for a successful launch.
Conducting periodic business reviews to assess situation per country, workout weaknesses & resolution while improving current strengths.
Monitor & evaluate planned & unplanned marketing activities and provide guidelines for activities & promotions.
Continuous analysis of sales reporting (including EPOS data) to identify and resolve negative trends & maintain positive trends.
Monitor stocks & shipment situation by country to make sure we maintain adequate stock levels by country.
Prepare & amend planograms and merchandising guidelines by country.
Analyze & provide feedback on distributor performance while trying to develop capacities of distributors.
Conduct annual products training by country and whenever needed.
Monitor & analyze competition in market & provide plans to counter competitors.
Define proper ‘must stock list’ per country & ensure execution
Strategy:
Develop strategies per country/product division.
Develop current businesses through defining new business opportunities and/or required NPDs to complement the range.
Implement country specific projects to develop a certain category through proper market development approach
Marketing:
Ensure each country sets up a full year marketing plan & properly implements it. This includes customer specific marketing plans.
Help develop & utilize POSM.
Conduct in home visits to understand consumer habits and conduct NPD trials.
Finance:
Monitor & maintain sales figures & ensure healthy P&L.
Monitor top customers annual contracts & assess ROI per customer.
Maintain & amend price structures per country.
Ensure proper A&P spending.
Ensure payments are delivered on time.
My role involved two parts, the first part was managing the channel & the second part was doing the customer marketing activities & events for Supermarkets & A classes.
Managing Supermarkets & A class channel responsibilities as a channel manager included achieving the annual target, managing the visibility & the monitoring the sales of around 400 stores across 18 branches in KSA. Job responsibilities also included forecasting the right target by brand & ensuring the right level of support to achieve the target. Landing innovations, planning activities/activations and making sure they land on time in full. Tracking and rectifying on shelf availability was a major responsibility.
The channel management part also included managing budgets, tracking annual contracts and running quarterly payments on time.
As for the customer marketing activities, I conducted a clustering project to classify the different store types under the Supermarket & A class channel and then created a “store thumbprint” per classification channel. This helped having the proper plans set for the right set of stores.
Also, under the customer marketing events, I was responsible for planning & implementing category management of 4 categories (Tea, Hair, Oral & Skin cleansing) through training the team on the concept, presenting to the targeted stores management, negotiating the terms of the project/installation and following up with the team on installation.
Finally, I planned and landed the perfect store concept in KSA by which I finalized the right assortment of SKUs, right planograms, right stores in the right terms (Share of shelf, POSM, etc…)
Working as a key account manager for Carrefour - KSA had a great number of responsibilities including achieving annual target, managing the on shelf availability for Unilever portfolio (490+ SKUs) across KSA, planning & executing activations in stores (new launches, special events such as beauty events, Ramadan, etc…), tracking competitor activities, landing & managing new innovations, tracking & analyzing Carrefour EPOS data to uncover opportunities/threats, analyzing market shares, setting plans to grow categories and setting plans to recover any losses.
Also, during my work as a Carrefour key account manager, I negotiated & managed 2 new store opening making sure the full range is available at the shelf pre to the opening & Unilever’s presence in terms of extra visibility is as per Unilever’s size in the market.
Negotiated and signed one of the major launches in Unilever KSA (Ponds launch) landing major visibility & guaranteeing the success of the launch Vs our competitors.
Negotiated & Signed 2009 business development agreement during which we signed a customer business plan (CBP) that guaranteed our growth year on year.
Landed several category management projects across several categories (Tea, Shampoo) in several stores as part of the CWT (Carrefour world trade agreement).
Working as a marketing officer & part of the business development team, I had a diverse set of responsibilities. The marketing related responsibilities included conducting the research required to determine feasibility of products/services(Brokerage Solutions). This process involved determining the target markets, conducting market research (through using different methods including visiting conferences in the region) & competitive analysis, analyzing collected data & determining best course of action (corrective/exit strategy).
I was also responsible for a full software commercialization plan of a solution we have from the marketing & business development point of view (preparing marketing material, analyzing the required software features and setting up the targeted markets after conducting the proper research for commercialization processes & the proper market segmentation).
During my career in esense software I was involved in preparing and executing a new CI plan for the whole corporation.
Part of my responsibilities was to increase the company’s brand equity via increasing the corporate exposure over different channels.
Also I was involved in setting the company’s marketing department responsibilities, setting up a marketing plan, establishing processes, executing the marketing plan (preparing the company’s marketing material for its products & services, website rejuvenation, etc…).
On the business development front, I was responsible for leads generation for different product segments, meeting clients to understand their needs, preparing proposals for different solutions, managing pipelines, following up on clients, learning about solutions, preparing feature lists & features wish lists for products & demonstrating applications for clients. Also, I was responsible for finding the right set of channels & partners in order not to waste opportunities where we delegate leads & help our partners get the contract & we get our percentage out of our partners.
Hertz Jordan was a company relying mostly on Microsoft Access solutions to deal with their businesses. During my work with Hertz I Analyzed, developed, tested and deployed solutions based on top of the art technologies to help Hertz achieve better competency by having the right solutions to tackle their day to day operations. Part of my job included training employees on new solutions, providing assessment in process development.
Was involved in developing a variety of internal projects based of different technologies such as C++, C# (.NET 2003) and SQL Server 2000. These projects included extending functionality of COM objects, Outlook Add-ins, cracking Key generators applications, SMS gateways and developing multi-threaded applications. Also I played the role of a quality assurance engineer in some projects as well as providing technical assistance to a group of people.
Trained on multiple applications using COM objects and mobile phone applications, with focus on bug fixing using C++ and C# (.NET 2003).
MBA with marketing concentration
Finished my two A Levels with a grade of A.
Took 8 subjects in which I received 4 A's 3 B's and a C. My Degree was labeled with MERIT due to the variation of the subjects.