Position Reports to:
CEO

Location:
Cape Town or Johannesburg (Some travel between regions may be required.)

Purpose of the Position:
To develop opportunities for solar farms and single turbine wind sites next to large industrial power-users or an applicable power sub-station.

Identifying potential location, finding the landowner, finding the key responsible person in the target electricity off-taker, proposing the project to Mpuma management. And then driving the commercial project elements of Power Purchase Agreement and Land control.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop solar projects: Find land; find customers; get land signed; get customer signed; and, where grid requires, ensure the grid can be secured by liaising with colleagues in the engineering team.
• Getting projects financial close: Motivated by seeing a project created from start (with a land search, leading to a cold call to a CEO, etc) to finish (leading to a project being built). Must be interested and hungry to develop circa 20 projects simultaneously.
• Identify opportunities: To develop sub 35 hectare solar sites (and single turbine wind sites) next to either a large industrial power user in Johannesburg, Durban, Ekurhuleni, Cape Town and smaller towns – where they host one or two larger electricity users. Or, next to an applicable sub-station in City Power, Tshwane, Buffalo City, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay.
• Management: Managing local agents and Mpuma Power’s in-house land manager.
• Oversight: Of teams’ work on their projects, once the land and the target customer have been confirmed.

Required Skills & Knowledge

• Origination: Enjoys finding a potential site and getting the key elements of grid route, landowner, power purchase sale assembled.
• Sales & Deal Making: Expertise in sales, business development and negotiation.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Effective at communicating with internal teams, external suppliers, and key project stakeholders.
• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with fluency in English and/or Afrikaans (a second South African language is advantageous).

Qualifications & Experience

• Minimum Education: Matric (Grade 12) required.
• Preferred Education: A tertiary qualification in a related field is advantageous but not essential. Relevant experience will be considered in place of formal qualifications.
• Work Experience: Minimum 3+ years of experience in a similar role creating projects or as a business unit head, mobile telco mast developer manager, project originator in carbon projects, PPA sales lead in a utility or army engineering. And, preferably from one of the following sectors: solar / renewables, land agency, telco, charitable community engagement, biomass projects, oil & gas, or utilities.
• Business Development & Negotiation: Proven track record in identifying suitable.

Required Characteristics & Competencies

• Self-Direction & Planning: Systematically self-organising; including: activities, setting timeframes, and prioritising tasks to ensure efficient project execution. Able to follow and execute on a brief.
• Negotiating & Stakeholder Management: Reaching agreements with various stakeholders, whether one-on-one or multiple parties, while maintaining personableinteractions and still delivering on KPIs.
• Result-Oriented: Maintaining disciplinedfocus on delivering KPIs (including milestones, budget, and quality standards).
• Flexibility: Adaptable to change in project conditions, challenges, and adjusting priorities.
• Confidence & EQ: In addition to being personablewhen interacting with stakeholders, you need to be comfortable cold-calling CEOs and engaging enough that they will want to take your call (and persistent enough, too).
• Articulacy & Writing: Must be articulate in speech and writing. Writing well and engagingly, including writing good letters and emails, is a key competency. For example, comfortable writing CEOs and CFOs; as well as instructing lawyers on the basis of a commercial agreement with a client.
• Professionally Driven: Wants to get projects built and motivated by sense of accomplishment when a project is delivered (to standard, time, and budget). Also, a personal commitment to continual professional personal growth and self-betterment in such a way as to enhance professional expertise, credibility, KPI delivery, and transition to the next career-level.