Client Executive

A company that specializes in ICT/Project Management talent placements and contracting has an exciting opportunity for a Client Executive in Gauteng.

The Client Executive functions as a general executive for designated client accounts and/or regions / sectors and is accountable for the revenue, sales bookings, delivery/operational performance, as well as the overall PL and client experience for such accounts. Typical focus is on large accounts and/or regions / sectors, with significant potential for increased revenue opportunities across the enterprise. Revenue stream is typically longer-term with moderate degree of renewal complexity.

This role creates, implements, and manages the client relationship management and pursuit strategy aimed to understand, anticipate, and manage the needs of the organization from a current (organic) and future perspective. As an escalation point, this role minimizes client impacting issues and drives internal support and delivery teams to continue to evolve and streamline the operating model. The CBE may be responsible for building and leading a team who are positioned as trusted advisors and customer advocates for the organization

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management or Equivalent NQF 7 qualification 
• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in sales and/or client support
• Minimum of 10 years leadership experience with demonstrated success building and leading support and client relationship management teams.
• 12+ years of product, solutions, and/or technical customer support experience in a comparable environment.
• Advanced fiscal management experience

• Build the Business: Responsible for account planning over a 1-2-year time horizon. Establishes strategic account direction and implements account strategy.
• Accountable for the revenue, sales bookings, delivery/operational performance, as well as the overall PL and client experience for a designated account(s).
• Independently identifies, qualifies, and drives client commitment while managing the overall sales process that includes client engagement, opportunity qualification and definition, proposal development, solution confirmation, and close. Handles the more complex transactions.
• Leverage insight and consultative selling techniques to teach clients about their industry and offer unique perspectives on their business that lead them to the product and solution portfolio. Coach client stakeholders and build consensus.
• Penetrate accounts in such a way that it positions the company well to understand the clients business model, business challenges, and overall client buying process. Shape client demand for solutions that solve their urgent business challenges. Typical products/solutions are multi-line targeted at solving complex business problems.
• Collaborate with SSC (Marketing, Product, and Services) to ensure consistent messaging to clients, and help them gather the voice of the client information to continue to evolve product and solution innovation and offerings
• Represent the “voice of the client†and provide feedback to the product development and operations organization for improvements, market trends, customer architecture roadmaps and product issues.
• Responsible for facilitating formal Account Reviews (usually on a Quarterly basis) to ensure a strategic and collaborative approach to growing their assigned accounts. Responsible for maintaining documented Account Plans that capture the client’s business goals and problems and competitive threats and growth opportunities
• Responsible for both existing strategic account growth, growing a region/set of accounts, as well as new logo sales pursuits
• Keeps abreast of all applicable regulations, laws, and policies as they presently exist and as they change or are modified. Ensures that the staff are trained and evaluated on their knowledge of and adherence to compliance policies and procedures specific to their jobs. Understands and adheres to Security and Compliance standards as they appear in Information Security, Acceptable Use, Code of Conduct, and other corporate policies.
• Operational Delivery Excellence: Provide for an exceptional customer experience by reimagining key business processes with a relentless focus on operational and delivery excellence, improving our agility, reliability, and efficiency.
• In collaboration with other Executives and Operational Teams, create the overall strategy and service delivery expectations that provide for an exceptional client experience based upon measurement and management of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Operating Level Agreements (OLAs).
• Collaborate with other Executives and provide oversight and guidance to all critical client deliverables and must be able to proactively escalate, wherever necessary for complete resolution
• With client profitability and continuous service improvements as a focus, evolve and optimize the client business service and delivery model and ensure proper staffing levels and skills are in place to execute on the strategy
• Be aware of operational outages and assist in the coordination of resolution and recovery, if warranted. Astutely and smoothly deliver appropriate messaging around issue escalation to key client executives
• Drive other internal and client teams toward an appropriate resolution to ensure success.
• May serve as an escalation point for client issues as well as work prioritization concerns.

• Partner with other executive colleagues to package assets to provide competitive solutions to clients complex business problems, driving more productive conversations that open doors and enable success in new markets
• Responsible for effective demonstration of managerial practices to include: the identification and recruitment of key strategic talent in the region and/or territory, providing day-to-day leadership to the business teams, distribution and explanation of account plans, the establishment of clear roles, responsibilities, regions, and/or accounts for team members, as well as the overall coaching and performance management of a high performing team.

Technical

• Effective Stakeholder Management
• Achievement of profitability, sustainability and financial targets
• Effective budget and financial management
• Effective management of systems and processes
• Effective leadership and team management
• Experience orchestrating complex multimillion-Rand solution sales from business champion to the CEO level

Behavioural

• Tailors communication to the client's needs with authority, effectively delivers presentations and has strong verbal and written communication skills
• Uses rational and emotional drivers that would appeal to clients to comfortably drive negotiation conversations.
• Identifies the right client stakeholders and builds connections quickly to drive consensus for deals; works cooperatively with a wide range of internal stakeholders for deal success.
• Goes out of the way to complete a job and has a relentless drive to achieve results; is independent and self-directed and takes initiatives with minimal direction or supervision.
• Proven track record as a change manager and adept at building high-performance teams while driving transformational breakthroughs within target accounts
• Systematically solves problems and hypothesizes possible client pain points, expectations, and implicit brainstorms with team members to devise solutions to solve complex deal challenges.
• Sets clear, realistic and time-bound objectives that align to business growth; breaks each objective into tasks and process steps that can be achieved within a realistic timeframe.