Job Description

The Chief Growth Officer (CGO) is accountable for leading Vector's growth strategy -- driving sustainable, profitable expansion across all business units, channels, and customer segments. This includes spearheading customer acquisition and retention, optimising principal and customer partnerships, and unlocking new commercial opportunities across Vector's integrated solutions (Core, Vector Trade Marketing, Vector Primary Transport, and Vector Express).

The CGO ensures that Vector's value proposition remains differentiated, customer-led, and commercially robust, positioning the business as the partner of choice in cold chain logistics and route-to-market excellence.

Strategic Growth Leadership

Partner with the CEO and Executive Team to shape and execute Vector's long-term growth strategy, translating corporate goals into actionable commercial and customer strategies. Define and lead a unified Customer & Growth Strategy aligned to Vector's ambition for sustainable, profitable growth across all segments. Identify, assess, and operationalise new market, product, and partnership opportunities -- including innovation in last-mile, value-added services, and digital enablement. Integrate customer, commercial, and market intelligence into strategic decision-making to inform pricing, portfolio optimisation, and channel development. Establish clear growth metrics and lead regular performance reviews to track progress against revenue, margin, and customer satisfaction targets.

Client & Principal Relationship Excellence

Understand the customer and align their strategy with Vectors strategy that leads to profitable and sustainable growth. Need to be able to build and maintain CEO and MD relationships within major SA manufacturers and retailers. Manage the overall Customer portfolio and ensure appropriate engagement by customer executives based on deep understanding of customer needs, their operations and strategic objectives. Engage on a regular basis and manage the relationships on a formal quarterly review basis with key stakeholders. Ensure that customers have up to date knowledge of new service offerings and opportunities for partnerships with Vector (be it VTM/VPT/Express or Vector's Core business). Oversee the development and implementation of customer business plans. Develop and maintain strong work relationships with key opinion leaders in the market to inform future planning and customer focus. Manage the presentations to, and negotiation with national key customers. Formal business reviews to be conducted on a quarterly basis and build relationships with key national customers and executives. Drive the awareness and understanding of customers' budgets, goals and needs and the relevant impact on the Vector business. Keeping up to date on the overall Vector Customer strategy and business development in terms of budgets, goals, opportunities and needs. Drive the nature and extent of all communications with customers. Manage and close out new business opportunities. Conduct regular meetings with customer executives to confirm engagement and to analyse performance metrics. Review and present precise reports to the directors to illustrate trends, predictions and relevant strategies and update the leadership team on progress and achievements. Monitor customer performance by tracking customer contribution and market share for major product categories.

Commercial & Account Management

Lead the development of account strategies in accordance with the overall Customer strategy. Conduct regular reviews of Business performance and promotion strategies. Oversee the development, presentation and execution of 12-month promotion calendars in order to ensure operational business readiness and determine strategies to mitigate peaks and troughs in Customer. Ensure Principal/Manufacturer product knowledge is established and maintained. Coordinate the development of integrated promotional plans and authorise promotional investments. Manage the Supply Chain impact of SKU extensions, new channels and new business and new store openings. Monitor the demand forecast and its conversion into the supply planning process. Monitor and communicate into the business market trends and competitive activities. Continuously review and monitor pricing to ensure Vector remains competitive with the highest profitability possible. Monitor complaints and returns and ensure all issues are resolved timeously with the relevant principals and customers. Plan and oversee the recruitment, negotiation with and sign-on of new key Customers/Principals. Manage proposals, negotiated terms and conditions and contractual agreements with assigned national accounts.

Customer Financial Management

Drive the delivery of profitable revenue growth across all Vector customer and principal accounts. Oversee the development and management of the annual commercial budget, including revenue, trade spend, and margin optimisation. Ensure rigorous analysis of customer profitability, ROI on trade spend, and the continuous improvement of commercial performance. Identify financial risks and develop proactive mitigation strategies in partnership with Finance and Supply Chain.

Financial Management

Implement stretch financial goals for the Customer team. Prepare and control the annual Customer budget; schedule expenditures; analyse variances and initiate corrective actions. Understand key drivers of profit and loss and actively support the achievement of financial targets including driving profitable services at a customer level, maximising profitability, and identifying further business opportunities. Identify business risks to achieving financial targets.

Growth Innovation & Market Development

Identify and evaluate new growth frontiers - including emerging markets, service diversification, and channel expansion. Foster collaboration between business development, marketing, digital, and operational teams to accelerate innovation. Ensure customer insights, data analytics, and market intelligence inform growth priorities and new product/service launches. Drive strategic partnerships that enhance Vector's market relevance, brand equity, and sustainability credentials.

People & Culture Leadership

Lead and inspire the Customer & Growth Team to deliver a high-performance, customer-centric culture aligned to Vector's values. Build a robust succession pipeline through mentorship, talent development, and empowerment of emerging leaders. Champion continuous capability development in commercial acumen, negotiation, relationship management, and data-led decision making. Drive collaboration across the executive, operational, and functional teams to ensure growth plans are executed seamlessly and cross-functionally. Foster an inclusive and accountable work environment where innovation, agility, and partnership thrive.

Knowledge and Skill

Knowledge

Customer and marketing principles and methodologies. Current market innovations. Products and services offered in the market in which Vector operates. Key Vector Manufacturing Principals, key customers and their business. An understanding of multiple key performance indicators, inter-relationship and bottom-line sensitivity. External industry and market knowledge regarding competitors, customers and consumers. Market research methodologies. Brand management principles. Consumer behaviour.
Skills

Negotiation skills. Computer literacy (MS Office and SAP). Verbal and written communication. Report writing. Presentation skills. Logical thinking. Analytical and evaluative thinking. Numeracy skills. Ability to leverage technology. Public speaking and interpersonal skills. Relationship building. Networking skills.

Requirements:

15 years' experience in a Supply Chain Customer function that includes managing complex and/or significant customer relationships and key/national accounts with at least 5 years in a senior management role, preferably within the FMCG industry. Track record of success working with customers' senior executives. Distinct advantage of existing relationships with key Retail, Wholesale and Food Service Customers within an SA context (CEO's and MD's).
Job Type: Full-time

Work Location: In person