Senior Business Development Manager

AltGen South Africa is hiring a Senior Business Development Manager in Cape Town to develop client relationships, negotiate PPAs, and enhance product offerings in the renewable energy sector. Responsibilities include leading commercial negotiations, managing client engagements, and collaborating with cross-functional teams. The role requires regular travel to meet clients and provide reports to senior management. The position is influential within the company and involves mentoring junior team members.
The Role

AltGen is seeking a Senior Business Development Manager to fuel the client's pipeline of buyers and bringing new services to untapped markets. The purpose is to pitch, negotiate and sign PPAs with key clients and manage buyers through the financial close process, while constantly driving improvement and advancement of our product offerings through ongoing interfacing with our engineering, project development and project finance teams. This is an influential commercial role within the company. The role is based in Cape Town.

Responsibilities:

Commercial
• Create new client relationships and leads for the Company
• Build on and enhance existing relationships with commercial and industrial energy clients
• Deliver proposals to prospective buyers and secure awards with new and existing buyers on a bilateral basis, or lead selected RFP processes to secure buyer awards
• Lead commercial negotiations of PPA key terms and long-form PPA contracts with support from the Company's established legal and commercial structures
• Interface with the Company's inhouse engineering, project development and project finance teams to enhance and evolve proposals in line with market feedback on pricing and commercial terms
• Bring new products to the Company’s long-standing client base including innovative generation and energy storage solutions
• Carry out ad hoc strategic internal projects aimed at evolving new products, understanding new markets, improving internal business development processes, etc
• Provide leadership to junior business development and sales resources as the business development team expands
• Interface with the Company's development, engineering, project management, asset management and operations and maintenance teams to align and continuously improve the market offerings

Administrative/ Operational
• Provide regular reports and insights to senior management on business development activities
• Manage a pipeline of client engagements in line with the company’s CRM system
• Monthly travel to meet with clients in Johannesburg and other urban centres, and to manage commercial/buyer processes during financial close events
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure consistent delivery of accurate and compelling implementation

Interpersonal
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders and partners within the renewable energy value chain
• Mentor and lead junior members of the business development team, while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and high performance within the team
• Engage with both external and internal stakeholders at multiple levels of the organisation
• Focus on understanding and meeting the needs of customers by offering solutions tailored to their specific energy challenges
• Build trust and credibility by demonstrating a deep commitment to delivering value and sustainable energy solutions

Key Performance Indicators

KPIs may change from time to time but will primarily be focussed on:
• Awards and letters of intent (MWs, ZAR, or MWhs)
• Signed PPAs (MWs, ZAR,or MWhs)

The employee will also have non-KPI priorities to be carried out on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis that drive the objectives of the business and the business development unit in particular

Requirements

Qualifications and Experience:
• Engineering, commercial, or legal degree.
• A blend of qualifications (i.e. both technical and commercial/legal) will be beneficial)
• Demonstrated track record of building a pipeline of clients and carrying these through to successful contract execution and implementation
• Ideally this should be based in the renewable energy and energy storage sectors
• Demonstrated history of negotiating PPAs for solar and/or energy storage projects to execution, other demonstrated experience in negotiating technically complex contracts will also be considered
• Experience in tendering and winning contracts in the energy sector (public or private)
• Experience in BESS, wind, and aggregation/trading platforms is an added advantage
• Experience in using CRM platforms to manage and track sales and business development activities

Technical Competencies:
• Proficient with MS Office and Google Suite
• Strong commercial acumen, and an ability to understand the interplay of technical, developmental and financial impacts on buyer contracts