Commercial Sales Manager (B2B & B2G)

About Pula

We are an insuretech firm that provides agriculture insurance design and execution services, specialising in index based insurance and are backed by top tier VC investors who have invested more than $25 million in the business. Since 2015 we have provided climate insurance to 15.4 million smallholder farmers, 41% of which were women across 19 markets in Africa and Asia who pay an average of $6.8 per season to insure their crops. So far we've unlocked over $2.22 billion of capital from local and international insurance markets for climate risks since we started in 2015 and paid out $40.8 million to our client farmers.

Pula is a fast-paced space, constantly adapting to new opportunities and challenges and we are made up of a high-performance, multi-cultural team. We expect our team to value performance, results and professionalism.

At Pula, our values are: 

• Obsessed with results: We are responsible for our future and therefore we get things done!
• Connect the Dots: We continuously identify different customer needs & business problems and build solutions that deliver value.
• Have a Can do Attitude! We dare to do things differently to make things work.
• We have each others’ back: We look out for each other & we share high quality, timely feedback that makes us better. 

According to the UN’s InterGovernmental Panel for Climate Change more than 3.3 billion people globally live in hotspots with high vulnerability to climate change and are now already feeling the impact of climate change through increased temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall. 
Insurance is a tool for vulnerable households in these affected regions to adapt to the effects that climate change is already having today on these households. It is a tool that enables for compensation payment for losses and damages that these households had no part in causing. Insurance compensation enables these households to make adjustments to their day to day livelihoods and practices and therefore allows for an equitable and just transition.

At Pula, we are building the systems that enable farmers worldwide to access insurance, using technology to insure this previously uninsured worldwide. We work in over 17 countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2021, have facilitated crop insurance cover to over 6 million farmers, 30% of which are women, across Kenya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Zambia, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. We are a for profit, and have raised over $10 million from leading venture and institutional investors as well as developed philanthropic relationships with private foundations and bilateral donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and German Insure Resilience Solutions Fund that have accelerated investments in our target markets.

Pula is proudly fast paced, constantly learning from the challenges we face and overcome. We are proudly culturally diverse but united in our ambition of continuous high-performance. By challenging ourselves we believe that we can overcome the hard problems we love solving. 

At Pula, our culture is defined by our: 

1.Obsessed with results: We are responsible for our future and therefore we get things done!

2. Ability to connect the Dots: We continuously identify different customer needs & business problems and build solutions that deliver value.

3. Our Can do Attitude! We dare to do things differently to make things work.

4. Ability to have each others’ back: We look out for each other & we share high quality, timely feedback that makes us better.

• Commercial Objective Key Results: Defining Commercial Objective Key Results in your region and ownership of the results.
• Sales Plan Execution: Research, prepare, and execute a sales plan focused on delivering new and recurring revenues through partnerships with agro-input companies and the public sector.
• Pipeline Development: Develop pipeline and continuously mature & and qualify opportunities in order to increase Pula’s market share and to enable achievement of sales target.
• Lead Generation: Generating and qualifying new leads and using different approaches to penetrate prospective clients in your region. 
• Sales Process Management: Progress prospects through a defined sales process to eventual contracting and implementation.
• Revenue Targets: Take ownership of the company's revenue targetsand formulate strategies to achieve and exceed them. This includes setting clear sales goals, creating sales plans, and monitoring progress regularly.

Expanding your networks, influencing and Pula’s positioning in the region

• Relationship Building (B2B & B2G): Constantly building deeply entrenched relationships(B2B & B2G)that will enable one to understand client needs, gather market intelligence, and build a credible pipeline of opportunities. 
• Value Proposition Communication: Effectively communicate value propositions through presentations and proposal
• Spokesperson: Act as the Pula spokesperson in the region.
• Identify Pula’s USP: Using knowledge of the market and competitors in the regions, identify and develop the company’s unique selling propositions and differentiators.

• Client Relationship Management: Manage and nurture existing client relationships across a wide range of stakeholders including commodity associations, farmers’ aggregators, insurers, and government and private companies.
• Customer Handover: Manage the handover of new customers to the operations team for the implementation of the solution.

For Success:

Technical Must-Haves

• A proven track record of high value sales: A minimum of 8 - 12 years of core selling experience as a hunter with extraordinary capabilityacross B2B & B2G clients across the region.
• Minimum of 5 years selling to the public sector: You must have a proven track record of at least 4 - 5 years in sales to the public sector (B2G).
• Robust list of networks and relationships with key decision-makers and champions in the public sector: You should possess an extensive and influential network of relationships with key decision-makers and champions in the public sector.
• Experience motivating a government budget: You should have experience in influencing and motivating government budgets to support your initiatives.
• A driven go-getter who never gives up: We are seeking a highly motivated individual who relentlessly pursues opportunities and is not deterred by challenges. You must be willing to knock on any door to achieve your objectives.
• Series of successes closing high-value government deals: You should have a track record of successfully closing high-value government deals.

• Experience selling a new solution: It would be advantageous if you have experience in selling innovative solutions.
• Someone who has tried to start their own business venture: Having entrepreneurial experience and understanding the challenges of starting a business venture is a plus.

Behavioral Must-Haves

• Gravitas: Charming. Has a confident, comfortable presence. Can sit across from a PS or minister and hold his own and pitch without assistance.
• Street Smart: Can understand and map the stakeholders, identify and test champions, structure the deal, problem solve, and find another way when the deal gets stuck
• Communication: Can confidently convert information internally and externally adjusting quickly between written and verbal communication as situations call for it. Follows through on action points from conversations and can succinctly summarize the progress required to progress a sale.
• Persistence & Intensity: Hungry to close deals, has a point to prove and looks to prove that point at Pula. Builds their profile and therefore reputation around Pula and the Pula products. They do not want to fail therefore will do whatever it takes for Pula to succeed.
• Ownership: Capability to own and deliver sales targets end-end as an individual contributor.

What Pula will bring to the table

• Growth potential: With an untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide, on track to doubling the number of farmers insured in 2021 and Pula’s global leadership in Agriculture Insurance, our new staffers have a tremendous upside growth potential.
• Market Leader: Not only is the opportunity massive, but Pula is by far the market leader in it’s category with 11m farmers insured as of 2023.
• Solid: Pula has been funded by leading venture capital investors (Omidyar Network, ACCION, MercyCorps) and global philanthropic institutions (MasterCard Foundation, CGAP/World Bank as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Pula closed a  $6m series A funding in December 2020 in the right in the middle of the pandemic a clear testimony of the opportunity that Pula is going after.
• Respected: Winner of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2019, Winner of The InsureTech of the Award, Africa. Featured on TED talks, The New York Times, The Economist.
• Impact and creation: This is a high-impact role, that offers a unique opportunity to bring the company to the next level, whilst developing new strategies, approaches and ideas.
• Leadership: The founders & CEO foster a culture of transparency, respect, high performance, pragmatism, execution and personal development.
• Purpose: It is rare to find a professional opportunity that offers accelerated professional development and a life purpose. Pula is going through a second phase of accelerated growth that will naturally provide professional development, whilst contributing to the financial stability of small farmers in the emerging markets.
• Remuneration: Competitive base salary accordingly with seniority and experience, commission on closed sales and an employee share option plan that offers an attractive equity upside.

To learn more about Pula you can visit

TED Talk: Crop Insurance, an Idea Worth Seeding
New York Times: He Grew up on a Farm. Now, He Helps Protect Them
The Economist: The Poor, Who Most Need Insurance, Are Least Likely to Have It

How to apply

Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English.

With your resume send us:
Up to 2 pages of your best written work samples done to date -articles/ op-ed’s/ research work that can be found in the public domain.

Our process:

Stage 1 The Culture Interview: Your complete applications will be reviewed and those shortlisted will be invited for a culture interview to understand if you have Pula DNA

Stage 2 The Technical Interview: Those that pass the culture interview will be invited to complete an assignment that will give you a good sense of what working at Pula is like. This way you will get to know if you like the job, and we get to know you. Those with completed assignments will be invited for a technical interview with the hiring manager.

Stage 3 The Panel Interview: Those that pass the technical interview will be interviewed by a panel of future colleagues who you will be working with at Pula so you can get to know your new colleagues and they can get to know you.

Stage 4 The Reference Check: as described :-)

Stage 5 Offer: If you have gotten this far, you may pat yourself on the back- as you’ll receive an offer!

Pula’s mission is to provide farmer resilience. To achieve this, we put our small holder farmers that use our services and the employees that provide them at the heart of everything we do. For that purpose, Pula was created to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.