Purpose
To grow MIE's revenue from strategic solutions. You will win new multi-year deals that combine more than one product, across three areas: compliance and integrity risk, supplier risk, and conflict of interest. You will then grow those deals inside a set portfolio of key accounts.
About the role
MIE is changing what it sells. We are moving from selling single verification checks to helping clients make confident decisions about the people, companies and suppliers they depend on. This role takes that change to the market, within a set portfolio of accounts.
MIE is South Africa's leading background screening and psychometric assessment business. We hold decades of verified data and strong relationships across financial services, mining, retail, logistics, healthcare and the public sector. The market is changing. Clients now face overlapping duties under the Protection of Personal Information Act (“POPIA”), the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, 2001 (“FIC Act”) and public-sector procurement rules. As a result, they are choosing partners who can deal with the whole trust agenda, rather than sell separate checks.
This is a sales role, but a consultative one. You will sell results and better decisions, not single checks.
What you will sell
▪ Compliance and integrity risk solutions - ongoing monitoring of clients and screening against sanctions lists, as required by the FIC Act. This covers anti-money-laundering duties and extends to screening for politically exposed persons and adverse media. It helps accountable institutions apply the risk-based approach set out in section 42 of the FIC Act, and the guidance issued by the Financial Intelligence Centre. You will sell this to compliance and risk teams. They judge it on whether it will stand up to a regulator, as much as on price.
▪ Supplier risk solutions - due diligence on suppliers and vendors; checks on company details, directors and beneficial owners; screening of new suppliers at onboarding; and ongoing monitoring of existing suppliers. You will sell this to procurement, supply chain and internal audit teams. Demand is usually driven by public-sector rules and corporate governance duties.
▪ Conflict-of-interest solutions - mapping the links between employees, suppliers and related companies; declaring and detecting hidden interests; lifestyle audit reports; and ongoing monitoring for new conflicts. You will sell this to ethics, forensic, internal audit and procurement teams, as a control against procurement fraud and corruption.
You will need to hold a credible conversation in all three areas, and to link them. Inside a single client, these teams often buy separately, and often from different suppliers. The opportunity is to bring that spend together at MIE.
Key responsibilities
Own and grow the accounts
▪ Own a set portfolio of strategic accounts. You are accountable for keeping them, growing them and expanding them across all three solution areas.
▪ Find, qualify and rank opportunities in large and upper mid-market clients, where a combined solution is clearly worth more to the client than buying single products.
▪ Build and maintain an account plan for each named account. Map the people who matter across compliance, procurement, internal audit, ethics, risk, finance and the executive.
▪ Open new relationships with senior functional heads, and turn existing transactional relationships into multi-year engagements.
Design the solution
▪ Run a structured discovery process. Understand how each client makes decisions, and what its risk and compliance picture looks like, before you propose a product.
▪ Build combined proposals that draw on all three areas, and describe them as client results: decisions that stand up to a regulator, lower supplier risk, earlier detection of conflicts of interest, faster onboarding, and supplier spend brought together in one place.
▪ Work with product, operations and compliance specialists to confirm that what you are proposing can be delivered - service levels, legal limits, POPIA lawful basis and FIC Act constraints - before you commit MIE.
Own the commercial outcome
▪ Shape pricing and deal structures that suit solution selling: multi-year agreements, bundles, tiered pricing, volume commitments and value-based models. Do this with finance and executive leadership.
▪ Lead proposals, client presentations, tender and request-for-quotation responses, and contract negotiation through to signature.
▪ Protect margin and contract quality. You will be measured on the value and durability of what you sell, not on volume won through discounts.
▪ Produce accurate forecasts and pipeline reports, and keep customer relationship management records up to date.
Lead the deal team
▪ Act as deal captain. Pull together and direct the internal team you need to win and land each engagement: product specialists, solution consultants, compliance, legal and operations.
▪ Stay the commercial owner after signature. Work with operations and service delivery so that the client gets what was sold, and so that renewal and growth are planned from the start.
▪ Bring market information back into product and executive forums: what competitors are doing, what clients are struggling with, and what they need but cannot buy.
Build the market
▪ Represent MIE at industry forums, client events and professional bodies across the compliance, procurement, internal audit and forensic communities.
▪ Help build MIE's playbook for selling strategic solutions, including qualification frameworks and reference cases, so that the rest of the sales team can use the same approach.
Measures of success
▪ The annual value and total contract value of new and expanded engagements signed, against an agreed target.
▪ Breadth per account - how many of the three solution areas each engagement covers. Deals covering more than one area count for more than single-product wins.
▪ Account penetration and retention - accounts moved from transactional or zero spend to multi-year agreements, and renewed at or above the contracted value.
▪ Pipeline health - enough qualified pipeline, deals moving forward at pace, and accurate forecasts.
▪ Margin and contract quality - pricing rules followed, and signed terms that hold.
What you will bring
▪ A proven record in business-to-business sales or key account management, with a steady record of meeting and beating targets and winning new business.
▪ At least five years selling solutions and services. You must be able to show that you sell consultatively - services, data, risk or technology - rather than selling single products.
▪ Experience closing complex deals with many decision-makers, and growing the accounts you already hold by selling into neighbouring teams.
▪ Credibility in at least one of the three solution areas - compliance and financial crime risk, supplier and procurement risk, or conflict of interest and forensic services - and the appetite to learn the other two.
▪ Existing relationships in South African corporates or the public sector, ideally across at least two major sectors.
▪ Confidence with tender and request-for-quotation processes in both the public and private sectors.
▪ A working knowledge of the rules that drive client demand: POPIA, and a sound general understanding of the FIC Act and public-sector procurement and governance duties.
Qualifications and experience
▪ A relevant tertiary qualification (Commerce, Law, Risk Management, Business or related).
▪ Five or more years in business-to-business sales or key account management, including time in compliance, risk, screening or a related information services field.
▪ Experience in credit bureau, procurement, risk management or compliance is an advantage.
▪ A valid driver's licence and a willingness to travel to clients.
Personal attributes
▪ Driven, focused on targets, and able to keep going when deals stall.
▪ Credible with senior managers and executives. You earn the right to advise, not only to sell.
▪ Consultative and curious. You work out the problem before you propose a solution.
▪ Able to see the whole picture, and to link needs across separate teams into one proposal.
▪ Collaborative. You lead internal deal teams without having authority over them.
▪ Ethical and discreet. You treat POPIA, the FIC Act and anti-corruption law as part of the design, not as obstacles.
▪ Comfortable working where the playbook is still being written.
Work Location: In person
