Country Managing Director — Enterprise-Connectivity Business

The mandate

The enterprise-connectivity business serves organisations whose networks combine leased circuits, managed routers, internet access, voice, security and cloud connections. Many customers still depend on technology marked for retirement. Parts of the installed base remain profitable, but faults increasingly require scarce expertise and ageing equipment, while newer services carry bespoke promises inherited from earlier sales cycles. A blunt withdrawal would endanger customer operations and recurring revenue.

The board is seeking a Country Managing Director to own the full United Arab Emirates outcome. The executive will carry the country profit-and-loss account, customer retention, new business, product migration, service performance and workforce decisions. They must convert a technically necessary retirement into a customer-led portfolio renewal, protecting essential services without allowing exceptions to become a permanent alternative to execution.

This planned replacement follows a period in which commercial growth and platform simplification were governed separately. The new leader will be expected to make both disciplines answer to the same account economics. They will decide which contracts merit engineered transition, which propositions require repricing or redesign, and which relationships should be exited because the cost and risk of continued customisation cannot be justified.

Scope and operating context

The position is based onsite in Dubai and leads approximately 1,175 employees and material partners across the United Arab Emirates and a wider international operating region. The perimeter includes enterprise sales, solutioning, product management, service delivery, customer assurance, commercial finance and the country interfaces into network, cyber, cloud, wholesale and field operations. Customers range from growing local businesses to multinational, government-related and regulated organisations with exacting continuity requirements.

Legacy exposure is not uniform. One circuit may carry replaceable office traffic; another may connect a branch, payment device, industrial site or safety process. Contract records do not always describe the operational dependency, and customer asset inventories can be incomplete. Some clients are ready to adopt software-defined or managed alternatives, while others face internal change freezes, equipment constraints or approval processes that run beyond the operator's preferred closure date.

The business also has a commercial architecture problem. Discounts, installation waivers, service credits, third-party access costs and unmanaged change requests have accumulated across accounts. Reported revenue can obscure weak contribution and high engineering effort. The Managing Director must create an account-level view of value and transition cost without using margin pressure as an excuse for abrupt or unsafe treatment of customers.

First-year agenda

The first ninety days will establish a defensible installed-base record. For every material legacy service, the team will identify customer ownership, contract, location, dependency, current performance, supportability, alternative design, third-party reliance and credible migration window. The Managing Director will personally review the highest-value and highest-consequence accounts, separating genuine operational blockers from situations in which no one has made a clear proposal or asked for a decision.

An account-segmentation model will then guide action. Strategic relationships with complex dependencies will receive named transition leadership and a joint roadmap. Standard customers will move through repeatable offers and delivery pathways. Economically impaired contracts will be repriced, simplified or prepared for orderly exit. Every exception will carry an owner, cost, risk, expiry and next decision; none will be approved through informal escalation alone.

The executive will rebuild the migration proposition around customer outcomes. Sales teams must explain what changes, why it is necessary, what the replacement enables, what customer action is required and how continuity will be protected. Solution architects will avoid replicating every legacy feature if a simpler design meets the underlying need. Commercial offers will recognise migration effort while preserving lifetime economics rather than buying acceptance through discounts that create the next problem.

Delivery capacity will be reorganised around cohorts. Site surveys, hardware, access partners, configuration, testing and customer change windows will be planned as a single chain. Weekly management will focus on blockers that threaten customer readiness or retirement milestones, not raw order counts. Where common causes produce repeat delays, the Managing Director will change the offer or delivery design instead of relying on individual heroics.

Transition service will be protected through monitoring of faults, restoration, change failure, credits and escalations across old and new environments. High-consequence moves require rehearsed fallback and senior customer coordination. Technical activation will not count as completion while routing, security, monitoring, billing or operational acceptance remains unresolved.

By the end of year one, the board expects a materially smaller unsupported estate, improved contribution visibility, fewer open-ended exceptions and stronger retention among accounts worth keeping. The business should also have a repeatable commercial and delivery model for modern connectivity rather than a collection of individually negotiated replacements.

Leadership responsibilities

The Country Managing Director will chair the country operating committee and represent the business to the group board and Group Chief Executive. They will own the integrated forecast for revenue, gross margin, customer loss, migration cost, service risk and cash. Bad news about account readiness, partner capacity or product economics must surface early enough to alter a decision.

The role will lead senior engagement with customers whose migrations carry material operational or reputational consequence. It must be possible to acknowledge a missed commitment, explain the evidence and agree a safe next step without surrendering the need to retire an unsustainable service. The executive will also manage wholesale carriers, access partners and equipment suppliers where their readiness determines the customer outcome.

Internally, the Managing Director will align incentives across sales, product and delivery. Sales cannot be rewarded for renewals that preserve obsolete designs; migration teams cannot be rewarded for disconnections that destroy viable relationships; operations cannot indefinitely protect exceptions without a funded decision. Leadership appointments and succession will favour people who can manage this whole equation.

Measures of success

The board will monitor recurring revenue retained through migration, contribution by account cohort, legacy services removed, modern-service activation, overdue exceptions, migration lead time and customer acceptance. It will distinguish voluntary exit from avoidable churn and track whether new contracts contain deliverable scope, viable third-party cost and enforceable change control.

Service measures will include availability, fault recurrence, restoration, change failure, customer escalations and service credits during transition. Commercial health will be tested through backlog quality, installation cash, discount leakage, unbilled work and forecast accuracy. The Managing Director will also be judged on leadership depth, cross-functional ownership and whether account teams can explain both customer dependency and economic value.

Candidate profile

Candidates should offer more than 28 years of leadership in enterprise telecommunications, managed networks, technology services or critical business-to-business infrastructure. They must have run a substantial country or regional P&L and personally governed a difficult product sunset, customer migration or contract reset. Experience with regulated and government-related customers in the Gulf is strongly relevant.

The board will seek evidence of recovering value from a complex installed base, choosing when to fund a transition and closing services without a responsible future. Candidates should understand access economics, service levels, solution design, wholesale dependencies, contract liability and the operations behind enterprise promises.

The successful leader will combine commercial nerve with respect for customer continuity. They must be willing to lose uneconomic business for sound reasons, yet incapable of using portfolio simplification as cover for poor planning. Clear written judgement, disciplined escalation and credibility with engineers, procurement leaders, chief information officers and boards are essential.

Compensation and appointment terms

The indicative base salary is AED 2,350,000–3,400,000, with annual incentive and long-term participation. Reward will reflect sustainable recurring value, safe retirement progress, customer outcomes and quality of earnings rather than gross bookings or disconnection volume. Final arrangements will consider the appointee's P&L scale, regional mobility and any verified forfeited awards.

Confidentiality

The organisation is not identified because its platform exposures, customer transition dates, contract economics and supplier dependencies are sensitive. Account-level information will be provided only after identity, conflict and confidentiality checks. Applications must exclude customer names, circuit references, network diagrams, pricing schedules and any protected material obtained in another role.