Sales Lead, Kampala

The role

PowerUp is opening its cash-sales channel for electric pressure cookers in Kampala. You will be the first commercial hire on the ground, and you will own the number. A team of ten sales agents is being recruited now; your job is to take that team from first orders to 150–180 activated units a month within six months, through markets, door-to-door follow-up, and small B2B accounts (distributors and SACCOs ordering in lots of around twenty).

This is a founding commercial role in a new business line. PowerUp has 75,000 stoves deployed globally, but the cash channel is new, and the Kampala playbook is being written, not handed over. If you want a defined system to step into, this is not the job. If you want to build one, read on.

You report to the Head of Commercial, with a weekly cadence and direct coaching. Dotted line to the Kampala Operations Lead, who owns inventory, cash float, and warranty — you do not. Your focus is on sell-through and team performance.

What you own

The number. 120 activated units per month by month three; 150–180 by month six. Activated means a first cooking event registered via IoT telemetry — not units dispatched, not units sold. A pressure cooker sitting unused in a customer’s kitchen is not a win. This distinction sits at the centre of how the role is measured and is not open to interpretation.

The team’s performance distribution, not just its average. Carrying the team on the back of two strong agents is not the model. By month four, your bottom-quartile agent must be producing at least 60% of the team's median output. That means coaching, retraining, and — when needed — having the difficult conversation with an agent who is not going to make it. This is a core responsibility of the role, not a footnote.

The commercial discipline of the team. You own the P&L of the sales function: cost per activated unit, B2B mix, and post-sale activation rate. You should be able to walk through the unit economics of your team in numbers, every week, without preparation.

How your time splits

In the first three months, you spend roughly 40% of your time coaching agents, 35% personally closing in markets and on doorsteps, and 25% opening new B2B accounts. You sell personally in the early weeks to codify what works — pitches, objection handling, demo flow — so the team has a real playbook, not a deck.

By month six, the mix shifts: about 55% coaching, 15% personal selling, 30% B2B hunting. The job is to build a team that outperforms you, not to be the best individual seller wearing a manager’s title.

How are you measured?

Five KPIs, in priority order:

1.     Activated units per month, IoT-confirmed.

2.     Agent productivity distribution — bottom-quartile agent output at or above 60% of team median by month four.

3.     Cost per activated unit (fully loaded sales cost divided by activations) — below USD 12 by month nine.

4.     B2B channel share of volume — at or above 30% by month six.

5.     30-day post-sale activation rate — at least 75% of sold units registering ten or more cooking events in their first thirty days.

What you must bring

•       Fluent Luganda.

•       You have personally sold in Kampala markets or door-to-door in a comparable Ugandan urban setting. Not supervised it — done it.

•       You have managed a team of ten  or more in sales or field operations.

•       Background in a considered-purchase or asset-financed category: solar home systems, microfinance, agri-inputs, motorcycles, appliances, or similar durables. FMCG and telco alone will not prepare you for this product.

•       At least one role on your CV with two or more years of tenure.

•       You can talk through the unit economics of a product you previously sold, in numbers. We will test this in the interview.

What good looks like in this role

•       Weekly numbers land on time, in a consistent format, without prompting.

•       Underperformance is identified in week two of a slide, not month two.

•       Escalations to the Head of Commercial come with a recommendation, not just a problem.

•       Small fraud, attendance issues, and process drift are addressed early — not allowed to fester because the agent is hitting their number.

•       The team’s results do not depend on you being in the field that week.

Path from here

If the Kampala model works, the next hubs follow. The person who builds this team well is the natural candidate to lead the next ones.

Start date: three to four weeks from offer

How to Apply:

All applications will be received and reviewed through the BrighterMonday Portal by clicking on the 'Apply Here' section