Commercial Director - OTL

Position: Commercial Director

Organization: O-Trade & Logistics

Through O Trade & Logistics (OTL), Orascom Investment Holding introduces otrovato, a B2B platform designed to simplify trade across Africa and beyond. otrovato connects buyers and sellers, ensuring secure, efficient, and seamless transactions. By empowering businesses and enabling cross-border trading and partnerships, otrovato serves as an online B2B platform driving Africa's economic growth.

Platform link: otrovato, B2B platform in Africa

Job Description:

The Commercial Director is an executive leadership role responsible for building, scaling, and governing otrovato entire commercial engine. Reporting directly to the O-Trade CEO, the Director owns consolidated revenue generation, commercial P&L performance, B2B market expansion, strategic alliances, and go-to-market activation.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership & Commercial Performance

• Consolidated P&L & Revenue Ownership: Own the commercial strategy, consolidated buyer pipeline, revenue targets, gross margin performance, and venture-level P&L economics across all operating lines and geographies.
• Commercial Governance & Planning: Define and govern commercial plans across target verticals and buyer segments. Establish full funnel visibility from validated lead generation through RFQ, quotation, closed transaction, and long-term account retention.
• Cross-Functional Executive Alignment: Partner with executive leadership (CEO, Product, Vendor Management, Finance, and Operations) to establish monetization frameworks, joint pricing structures, unit economics, and operational cadences.
  
  

Direct Commercial & Revenue Pillars

• B2B & Sectoral Sales: Direct high-value corporate, wholesale, and sectoral sales pipelines. Oversee prospecting, account qualification, high-stakes contract negotiations, and strategic buyer acquisition.
• Market Development & Field Validation: Lead structural market mapping and field validation initiatives across East Africa and prospective expansion markets. Set research standards and evidence thresholds to convert market discovery into validated commercial opportunities.
• Strategic Partnerships & Alliances: Lead negotiation and execution of high-impact commercial alliances with distributors, importers, trade associations, ecosystem partners, and regional financial/logistics providers.
• Category Management & Merchandising: Oversee commercial category positioning, catalogue depth, and product-mix strategies. Partner with Vendor Management and Supply teams to align merchandise availability, supplier pricing, and promotional terms with market demand.
  
  

Marketing & Growth Direction

• Digital & Performance Marketing Oversight: Oversee performance marketing strategies to optimize demand capture, paid channel acquisition, and pipeline lead velocity for digital marketplace channels.
• Brand & Communications: Direct brand positioning, corporate communications, and public relations to enhance Otrovato's authority across regional B2B markets.
• Content & Creative Strategy: Oversee offline and online creative assets, sales enablement materials, pitch collateral, and digital messaging to ensure unified brand alignment across sales channels.
• Trade Marketing & Field Events: Drive offline buyer engagement programs, trade shows, industry expos, and regional field activation events to capture high-value buyer segments.
• Affiliate & Referral Marketing: Scale B2B referral networks, affiliate programs, and agent networks to accelerate ecosystem growth and market penetration.
  
  

New Commercial Ventures & Scalability

• Venture Commercialization: Design and deploy go-to-market strategies, commercial models, and revenue structures for new ventures, including distribution models and value-added service offerings.
• Growth Governance: Continuously evaluate vertical performance data to lead strategic decisions on scaling, pivoting, or discontinuing commercial pilots.
• Team Leadership & Capability Building: Build and mentor high-performing sales, marketing, and market development teams. Establish structured execution discipline, commercial coaching, and metric-driven accountability.
  
  

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in business administration, Commerce, Marketing, Economics, International Trade or a related field. A relevant master's degree or MBA is an advantage.
• Typically, 10+ years of progressive experience across Commercial, Business Development, Market Development or B2B Sales, including meaningful responsibility for commercial planning and team or market leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to develop new B2B markets, validate demand, build qualified pipelines, negotiate complex opportunities and grow strategic accounts.
• Experience in a product-led, marketplace, e-commerce or technology-enabled company is strongly preferred. Candidates from adjacent environments may qualify if they demonstrate effective cross-functional work with Product, Growth, Marketing and Data teams.
• Working knowledge of international trade, export and import processes, cross-border supply chains and East African or comparable growth markets.
• Strong commercial and financial capability, including forecasting, funnel management, pricing, gross-margin analysis, business cases, unit economics and P&L-driver management.
• Proven ability to translate validated market opportunities into structured activation plans, commercial pilots and scalable operating models.
• Strong analytical judgment and comfort using market evidence, funnel data and commercial metrics to make scale, pivot or stop recommendations.