The Role
Lead country commercial strategy for PayGo smartphones in Zambia: drive unit and revenue growth, manage distributors and OEMs, develop MNO partnerships, ensure product availability, localize go-to-market and marketing, track performance, and advocate for after-sales service improvements.
Summary Generated by Built In
Job Location: Lusaka, Zambia>
About The Role:
The Commercial Manager - Phones, Zambia is accountable for driving device sales growth, revenue performance, and market expansion across Zambia. This role sits at the intersection of sales, partnerships, product, supply chain, and marketing – serving as the primary commercial owner for the PayGo smartphone business in the region.
The ideal candidate is commercially focused, data-oriented, and effective at working across teams, with deep experience in the mobile devices ecosystem in Zambia.
About The Role:
The Commercial Manager - Phones, Zambia is accountable for driving device sales growth, revenue performance, and market expansion across Zambia. This role sits at the intersection of sales, partnerships, product, supply chain, and marketing – serving as the primary commercial owner for the PayGo smartphone business in the region.
The ideal candidate is commercially focused, data-oriented, and effective at working across teams, with deep experience in the mobile devices ecosystem in Zambia.
What you would be expected to do:
Own Country-Level Commercial Targets Jointly with the In-Country Sales Team
This role jointly manages revenue and unit sales targets with the in-country sales team. The sales team owns day-to-day execution on the ground; the Commercial Manager's role is to create the conditions for that team to succeed — ensuring they have the right products, pricing, channel coverage, and marketing resources to achieve common goals.
Track Performance and Escalate Where Needed
Monitor revenue performance at country level. Where performance is off-track, identify the root cause and resolve what can be addressed locally — escalating to the Business Head where the issue requires upstream intervention.
Manage In-Country Distributor and OEM Relationships
Maintain day-to-day relationships with local distributors and OEM representatives, ensuring product availability, partner compliance, and sell-through performance are tracked and managed on an ongoing basis.
Develop and Commercialise Telecom Partnerships
Mobile network operators have distribution networks, marketing channels, and customer relationships that took years to build. This role is accountable for identifying suitable MNO partners, recognizing the full breadth of what a partnership could unlock, and structuring commercial arrangements that translate that potential into tangible commercial outcomes.
Ensure Product Availability at the Right Time and Place
Work with the regional supply chain team to provide accurate country-level demand signals, flag stock risks early, and contribute to new model launches and EOL transitions within the country.
Drive Regional Marketing and Go-to-Market Execution
This role works closely with marketing to ensure promotional campaigns, digital advertising, in-store merchandising, and go-to-market plans are localized, well-executed, and moving toward the same goal — converting awareness into sales across every touchpoint in the region.
Advocate for the Customer's After-Sales Experience
Liaise with the in-country after-sales team to monitor service quality, flag recurring issues, and provide insights to the regional role to inform policy and process improvements.
You might be a strong candidate if you have:
5–7 years in a commercial, sales, or business development role within consumer electronics, mobile devices, telecoms, or a similarly fast-moving consumer industry.
Experience delivering against revenue and unit sales targets in a channel-led, distributor-focused sales environment.
Hands-on experience managing distributor relationships and in-market partner performance.
* Strong knowledge of the local smartphone market — trade dynamics, key players, consumer behaviour, and market landscape.
* Experience working across sales, marketing, and supply chain teams.
* Familiarity with device financing or PAYGo models is an advantage.
Experience delivering against revenue and unit sales targets in a channel-led, distributor-focused sales environment.
Hands-on experience managing distributor relationships and in-market partner performance.
* Strong knowledge of the local smartphone market — trade dynamics, key players, consumer behaviour, and market landscape.
* Experience working across sales, marketing, and supply chain teams.
* Familiarity with device financing or PAYGo models is an advantage.
What Sun King offers:
- Professional growth in a dynamic, rapidly expanding, high-social-impact industry
- An open-minded, collaborative culture with enthusiastic colleagues driven by the challenge of
- innovation and making a profound impact on people and the planet.
- A truly multicultural experience: you will have the chance to work with and learn from people from
- different geographies, nationalities, and backgrounds.
- Structured, tailored learning and development programs that help you become a better leader, manager,
- and professional through the Sun King Center for Leadership.
We place great importance on sustaining a diverse, inclusive work environment.
We believe that innovation and understanding comes from diversity on every spectrum. We work to make sure
every Sun King team member knows that they belong, knowing that sustaining an inclusive workplace requires
conscious effort and is a continuous journey, not an end-state.
Sun King recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes people based on their experience, skills, effort,
and results. We explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion, caste, national origin, color,
gender, marital status, family structure, sexual orientation, HIV/AIDS status, or disability.
We believe that innovation and understanding comes from diversity on every spectrum. We work to make sure
every Sun King team member knows that they belong, knowing that sustaining an inclusive workplace requires
conscious effort and is a continuous journey, not an end-state.
Sun King recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes people based on their experience, skills, effort,
and results. We explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion, caste, national origin, color,
gender, marital status, family structure, sexual orientation, HIV/AIDS status, or disability.
About
Sun King is the world’s leading off-grid solar energy company, combining cutting-edge product design, fintech, and field operations to deliver energy access for the 1.8 billion people who live without an affordable and reliable electric-grid connection.Sun King has built a new kind of energy utility: distributed, green, customer-centric, and affordable. We bring clean, reliable, decentralized energy directly into people’s lives — from solar kits that provide first-time energy access to multi-kilowatt systems that serve both off-grid users and grid-connected customers powering larger homes, schools, hospitals, farms, offices, and light manufacturing.Already, 25 million homes and businesses rely on Sun King for electricity supply and the appliances and services it enables: lighting, televisions, fans, refrigeration, and smartphones. Sun King combines energy generation, energy-efficient appliances, installation, and financing into one seamless offering. Think of it as a distributed utility, designed for wherever energy is needed and designed to scale with its users as incomes and energy needs grow.Sun King makes solar products affordable to low-income households and businesses via ‘pay-as-you-go’ (PAYG) purchase financing. Sun King installs solar after customers pay a small deposit. Customers then make small, manageable payments of as little as US $0.14 a day via mobile money or cash.Instead of paying for expensive, polluting, and health-damaging kerosene for lighting or diesel for power, customers unlock savings through accessing solar power and after one to two years of payments, customers own their solar equipment outright.Sun King collects payments digitally through mobile money systems and its 35,000 field agents — over 1 million payments each day. To date, Sun King has extended more than $1.4 billion in PAYG loans to customers.Sun King began by powering homes and businesses with solar systems delivered through PAYG financing. Now, we’re using the same model to make smartphones and clean cooking equipment affordable: helping households connect to the digital economy and transition from wood-based fuels to modern, sustainable alternatives.Sun King employs 3,500 full-time staff in 14 countries, with specialties spanning product design, data science, logistics, customer service, sales, software, operations, and more — all with a passion to serve off-grid families. Sun King is committed to gender diversity in the workplace. Women represent 42% of Sun King’s workforce.
Skills Required
- 5-7 years in commercial, sales, or business development within consumer electronics, mobile devices, telecoms, or similar fast-moving consumer industry
- Proven experience delivering against revenue and unit sales targets in a channel-led, distributor-focused sales environment
- Hands-on experience managing distributor relationships and in-market partner performance
- Strong knowledge of the local smartphone market including trade dynamics, key players, and consumer behaviour in Zambia
- Experience working cross-functionally with sales, marketing, and supply chain teams
- Commercially focused and data-oriented with strong cross-team collaboration skills
- Experience identifying, structuring, and commercialising partnerships with mobile network operators (MNOs)
- Familiarity with device financing or PAYGo models
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The Company
What We Do
Sun King designs, distributes, installs, and finances solar energy solutions for consumers who lack reliable access to traditional electrical grids.
