Social Marketing Senior Advisor

The Advisor will be responsible for strategically advising the Country Director and overseeing the sales program, focusing heavily on mentoring, coaching, and enhancing sales leadership across all distribution channels.

1. Strategic Commercial Leadership and Decision Support

• Advise the Country Director on critical strategic sales activities including enhancing marketing penetration, improve market coverage and sales marketing interventions.
• Provide expertise in proper marketing budget allocation and growth projections for Flame Condoms, specifically advising on the strategic choice for volume targets and budget allocation.
• Ensure immediate priority and executive focus on market penetration for the core categories of social marketing.

2. Enhancing Sales and Distribution Discipline

• Instill commercial and distribution discipline across the sales team.
• Revise and enforce the proper use of sales tracking to measure effectiveness, hold team members accountable for distribution targets, and prevent selective data presentation.
• Revise the existing reporting mechanisms for monthly wholesaler activation and product distribution by category, ensuring team ownership.
• Drive accountability for aggressive wholesaler penetration targets to move beyond the current coverage.

3. Mentoring, Coaching, and Capacity Building

• Provide intensive mentoring and coaching to sales leadership and the commercial team to in the area of leadership, coordinated teamwork, and accountability.
• Lead efforts to improve commercial fundamentals, including instilling forecasting and planning discipline among key sales personnel
• Support the improvement of trade sell-in materials and ensure the team is retrained on product selling points.
• Advise on capability building, including the supervising external marketing expertise/agency for event execution and brand building, particularly for condoms.

4. Execution Oversight and Performance Tracking

• Ensure implementation of a high-awareness campaign targeting Healthcare Providers (HCPs) to mitigate transition risk.
• Implement monthly KPI reviews covering wholesaler stockists, distribution, and stock availability.
• Track weekly volume for core products to assess the elasticity of price increase.

5. Sales Marketing

• Oversee execution of high-awareness campaigns (including external digital agency management for paid media on Meta, Google, Telegram), track weekly product volumes, and lead monthly KPI reviews on distribution and stock availability.
• Design and roll out a standardized Sales and Marketing Calendar that coordinates efforts, optimizes trade spend, and ensures in-outlet visibility targets are met.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• Extensive experience (10+ years) in Strategic Commercial Sales Leadership within a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) or social marketing context, preferably in Ethiopia or the region.
• Proven track record in significantly boosting sales coverage and market reach.
• Demonstrable expertise in mentoring, coaching, and developing high-performing sales teams and leadership.
• Strong understanding of distribution channels, wholesaler management, and sales tracking methodologies
• Experience in strategic planning, forecasting, budget alignment, and decision-making regarding brand transitions and product category prioritization