Business Development Manager – Merchant & Distribution

About SmartFoundry

Smart Foundry is Smart Africa Group's venture studio — built to think, validate, build, and scale. We develop in-house startup products that solve real African challenges, forming strategic partnerships to grow them beyond borders. Our portfolio includes AdFlow, Wakaly, and other platforms shaping the future of digital commerce and marketing across Africa.

About the Role

The Business Development Manager, Merchant & Distribution builds, manages, and grows a high-performing merchant and distribution ecosystem — acquiring quality merchants, onboarding distributors and channel partners, expanding market reach, and driving sustainable commercial growth.
The role is the key commercial link between SokoLink, merchants, distributors, retail partners, field teams, and internal operations, ensuring a strong active merchant base, a dependable distribution network, and a scalable route-to-market structure.

It is expected to grow the number of active merchants and trade partners, improve order volumes, open new territories, and contribute directly to revenue and market penetration.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute merchant acquisition strategies aligned with growth and revenue targets.
• Identify, recruit, and onboard merchants across target categories and locations, maintaining a strong prospect pipeline.
• Conduct merchant assessments covering business profile, product fit, sales potential, and commercial viability.
• Lead merchant outreach, pitching, negotiation, onboarding, and activation, ensuring accurate registration, KYC, and compliance.
• Support newly onboarded merchants to become active, transacting, and retained, and maintain a segmented merchant database.
• Identify, recruit, and manage distributors, wholesalers, aggregators, and channel partners to support market expansion.
• Build territory-based distribution structures and expand partner coverage across key towns, districts, and trade corridors.
• Monitor distributor performance and contribution to merchant growth and sales movement.
• Generate qualified merchant and distributor leads, and develop relationships with owners, procurement teams, and trade associations.
• Prepare proposals, commercial offers, and partnership recommendations, and support conversion from prospecting to activation.
• Increase merchant order frequency, basket size, and long-term account value, contributing to revenue targets.
• Manage relationships with onboarded merchants and key accounts, serving as the primary point of contact for support and growth.
• Track merchant performance, reduce churn, and support renewals, reactivation, and account growth.
• Support the design and execution of route-to-market plans, identifying geographic gaps and priority expansion zones.
• Work with field and operations teams to improve merchant coverage and partner productivity.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Commerce, Sales, Economics, Supply Chain, Retail Management, or a related field.
• Minimum 5–7 years' experience in business development, merchant acquisition, channel sales, trade development, distribution, or FMCG/B2B commerce
• Demonstrated experience acquiring and managing merchants, retailers, distributors, wholesalers, or channel partners.
  
• Strong exposure to distribution network building, territory development, and trade relationship management.
• Experience engaging SMEs, retailers, and trade actors in African markets is highly preferred.
• Experience in multi-region expansion or route-to-market execution is an added advantage.

Skills & Competencies

• Merchant acquisition, onboarding, and retention.
• Distribution and channel partner development, and route-to-market planning.
• Sales pipeline, account, and territory management.
• Commercial negotiation and proposal development.
• CRM and merchant database management, reporting, and performance analysis.
• Strong hunter mentality, commercial awareness, results orientation, and execution discipline.