Winnow Hiring for Managing Director, MENA Job at Dubai Full Time

About us

Food waste is a $1 trillion problem – costing the world over 1% of global GDP. We’re dead set on solving the problem and looking for people to help us achieve our mission. We, at Winnow, believe that food is far too valuable to waste, and that technology can transform the way we produce food. Our team is made of people who all share a passion for food, technology and growth.

Winnow, founded in London in 2013, helps the hospitality industry prevent food waste through internet of things tools in the kitchen. We have worked with hundreds of sites and are operating in over 30 countries around the world supported by our offices in London, Dubai, Singapore, Chicago, and Romania. We are a rapidly growing company with a strong base of clients who are rolling out our system globally. We have blue-chip customers including Accor Hotels, Hilton, IKEA, IHG, Marriott, Compass Group and many others.

Winnow Vision, our artificial intelligence-based technology, automatically tracks all food waste thrown away. It has won awards at the World Economic Forum and has received tremendous enthusiasm from our clients and the industry. Read about it on our website and this article in Forbes.

We are passionate about living our values and place them at the centre of everything we do:

Equal parts head and heart. We’re both passionate and measured. We carefully balance the need for quick solutions and pragmatism with the ability to step back, take in the bigger picture and build for the long term.

Bravely honest. With each other, that means we’re a transparent organisation where healthy, respectful debate is encouraged. With our customers, we challenge them if we don’t think they’re achieving their goals, whether they be environmental or financial.

People of action. Done is better than perfect, and we learn by boldly doing then rapidly improving. We’re breaking new ground, so we know things might go wrong. But we judge ourselves and each other on our reaction and our resilience.

Bound by food. We’re a diverse bunch, but our belief in the value of food is the common thread in everything we do. With each other, we celebrate through our love and respect for food. With our customers, it means we work hard to develop creative tools to make it easy for chefs to value food.

Hungry and humble. Our product is revolutionary, our people are impressive, and we’re hungry for change. But, we’re just the catalyst for a bigger movement. We stay humble regardless of our success, and make chefs the heroes in this journey.

This is an opportunity to join a rapidly growing start-up (ranked 78th fastest growing European start-up by the FT) and help us propel our growth at what is truly the most exciting and dynamic point in time in our business. You will work alongside a driven team who are motivated by building an exciting business and leaving the world a better place than we found it.

About the role and the team

MENA is a dynamic region and thriving market for Winnow and a key target for continued investment. We are looking for a talented, ambitious and strategically focused individual with 10 plus years of leading successful teams. As Managing Director for MENA, you will report to the CEO and be fully responsible for MENA’s P&L. You will also be a member of Winnow’s management committee comprising the founders and the managing directors for Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America.

Our MDs relish the challenge of both rolling up their sleeves to help colleagues at the ground level whilst making the strategic and commercial decisions to ensure the MENA team deliver their OKRs. Success will be driven by exceptional delivery of our existing contracts, expanding our relationship with key accounts, and winning new clients.

In addition to direct management of the Operations and Business Development teams, you will provide regional leadership for the other members of the Dubai office which includes our HR, Marketing and Technical Support functions.

Key objectives

• Support with the development of the global Business Development and Operations strategies, and execute within MENA to agreed targets within agreed timeframes
• Lead all Sales and Operations activities within MENA
• Collaborate and build partnerships internally to drive the agreed commercial strategy
• Build a solid team capable of delivering at pace to high standards
• Work closely with the global commercial team to agree on a commercial growth strategy for MENA, and support the growth of top 10 accounts globally
• Own the forecasting and capacity process for Customer Success within MENA, helping to define targets and resource allocation
• Streamline operational activities and establish effective scalable and repeatable processes
• Represent Winnow taking speaking opportunities at conferences and events to drive sales and grow our network
• Support strategic and operations projects globally as required
• Frame and break down complex problems into key components, design and execute on analyzing large and complex datasets to drive insights and provide recommendations to get results
• Manage MENA P&L to ensure deliver growth and long-term profitability
• Report on key indicators, drivers and trends for the business on a monthly and quarterly basis, performing ad-hoc analyses as needed
• Understand customer needs working with the Product team to ensure our product is fit for purpose in the marketplace
• Be an integral part of the leadership team

Requirements

Education and experience

• You have significant experience in Enterprise Sales and Operations, ideally within the hospitality industry. SaaS experience is an added bonus.
• You have successfully scaled a business regionally and/or internationally before and can demonstrate how you have led change across complex environments.

Personal attributes

• With proven leadership capabilities, you are able to demonstrate how you have successfully implemented successes by delivering through others. You take a coaching approach with colleagues and like to empower your team
• You are results-driven and can demonstrate how you have delivered effective solutions at pace
• You can demonstrate success in collaborating cross-functionally in order to deliver the best to your customers. You value the need to build strong partnerships internally
• You have proven experience in challenging and questioning the status quo. You enjoy implementing creative and innovative solutions to improve the way things get done
• You are transparent and act with integrity at all times
• You are able to organise self, including effective scheduling, prioritisation and time management skills, managing multiple tasks in parallel and completing tasks to tight deadlines
• You have the ability to convince others to an expressed point of view and gain acceptance and agreement of plans
• You demonstrate excellent communication skills. You are a confident and articulate presenter to audiences small and large. You communicate clearly in both written and spoken language. You listen attentively; you process and comprehend what you hear
• You have a track record of identifying and understanding complex problems, analysing options and deploying sound and sometimes tough decision-making skills
• You have strong analytical skills and are proven in using data to quickly get to the root cause of an issue from which you can start to work on a solution
• Motivated and curious, you love absorbing new information and are able to reliably recall and figure out how to rapidly apply it
• You have a solid understanding of how to scale a technology-led business both at least a core understanding of computer vision and an ability to translate its benefits to end-users and key client stakeholders

Our shared attributes

• You are both passionate and measured. You carefully balance the need for quick solutions and pragmatism with the ability to step back, take in the bigger picture and build for the long term
• You are transparent in approach and enjoy a healthy, respectful debate. You work hard to build open and honest collaborative relationships
• You get things done and seek to continually improve. Your customers want you on their team
• You are passionate about the value of food and are committed to the fight against food waste
• You are humble in approach and quick to pitch in if you see someone struggling

Benefits

• Competitive base salary
• Stock options
• Life insurance
• Company funded health insurance
• Employee assistance programme
• 22 days of paid vacation time in addition to national holidays
• You will love what you do – waking up every day solving one of the biggest social problems of our generation
• Committed team members with broad experience who share a common passion to build a world class business