General Manager, Commercial

About the role

This is a senior commercial leadership role with ownership of commercial strategy for growth and profitability in the education industry. You will define the growth process, identify key business value drivers, and set the multi-year direction for the commercial function. You will translate corporate strategy into commercial targets and cascade these into functional plans for sales, marketing, and business development. You will build and lead a diverse commercial organisation with direct ownership of the sales team's quota-setting, performance and coaching.

Commercial Leadership

• Own the commercial strategy for growth and profitability, including defining the growth process, identifying the key business value drivers, and setting the multi-year direction for the commercial function.
• Translate corporate strategy into commercial targets and cascade these into functional plans for sales, marketing, and business development.
• Build and maintain collaborative relationships across the organisation — to ensure commercial plans are resourced and deliverable.
• Build external relationships with strategic partners, distributors, and industry bodies that expand the company's reach and credibility.
• Actively monitor the business, political, and regulatory environment — including government education initiatives and policy shifts — that could affect market access, and adjust strategy or mitigate risk accordingly.
• Bring a point of view to senior management on where the market is heading, not just where it has been.
• Build and lead a diverse commercial organisation, with direct ownership of the sales team's quota-setting, performance and coaching.

Marketing

• Ensure marketing and sales are tightly aligned, with marketing plans built around what sales needs to hit targets, not run as a parallel workstream.

Sales

• Own and adapt to the sales strategy across all key market segments and the full go-to-market channel mix — local sales, international sales, distributor networks and ministries of education — with full accountability for the revenue it produces.
• Design and implement the sales processes, tools, and cadences (pipeline reviews, forecasting discipline, account planning) needed to scale the function professionally.

Business Development

• Set the strategy and provide leadership for enterprise-wide business development, harnessing education solutions and capability across the Singapore and the rest of the world.
• Continuously review and analyse the existing product, service, and market portfolio to identify where growth is sustainable and where it isn't.
• Originate, evaluate, and manage new business development opportunities and new product or service offerings that are consistent with the company's growth strategy — including build-vs-partner-vs-acquire decisions where relevant.
• Bring commercial discipline to new opportunities: a clear view of market size, competitive position, and path to profitability before resources are committed.

About you

• Degree in any discipline.
• Significant international sales and marketing solution development and implementation experience, ideally at a senior leadership level with P&L accountability.
• Proven track record of managing teams and markets of comparable size and complexity, with clear evidence of revenue growth delivered.
• Relevant multi-cultural experience, with the ability to operate effectively across diverse markets and stakeholder groups.
• Relevant industry experience and strong working knowledge of target markets.
• Good understanding of the publishing and education industry, including how ministries and institutional buyers operate.
• Demonstrated experience developing and executing successful commercialisation strategies, from concept through to measurable market outcomes.

Skills & Competencies

• Strong, natural leadership — able to build, motivate, and hold a diverse commercial team accountable.
• Strong business acumen and the judgement to drive commercial decisions independently.
• Targets-driven and results-focused, comfortable being measured on outcomes.
• Strong strategic thinking, balanced with the discipline to execute.
• Ability to think creatively and develop solutions to complex environments and business challenges.
• Outstanding sales management skills, including forecasting, pipeline management, and channel development.
• Strong negotiation and analytical skills.
• Ability to operate both hands-on and strategically, moving fluidly between the two as the situation requires.
• A natural problem-solver and storyteller — comfortable working through ambiguous, complex commercial situations and building a compelling narrative around them, not just a spreadsheet.
• Skilled at managing a wide range of stakeholders — internal and external (ministries, distributors, partners) — each with different interests and levels of influence over the outcome.