General Manager - Engineering & Water Solutions

Job Title: General Manager
Reporting to: Chief Executive Officer
Industry: Engineering & Water Solutions
Location: Nairobi, Kenya; regional travel as required
Our client is looking to hire a General Manager. The GM will be the company’s the principal integrator of its Engineering & Water Solutions and Industrial Trading divisions.
The GM will own the consolidated profit and loss account, cash conversion, execution quality, commercial growth, people performance, and management systems.
The role converts the company’s strategy into disciplined weekly execution and is accountable for building an institution that performs without daily CEOs intervention.
The GM is expected to make decisions, allocate resources, enforce accountability, resolve cross-functional breakdowns, and deliver profitable growth while protecting the company’s reputation, technical standards, working capital, and customer relationships.
Responsibilities
Enterprise Leadership and Strategy

• 
  
• Translate the Board-approved strategy into annual operating plans, budgets, quarterly priorities and weekly performance rhythms.
  
• Lead the management team as one enterprise; eliminate silo behaviour between sales, engineering, procurement, inventory, finance and service.
  
• Provide the CEO and Board with concise, accurate and decision-ready reporting on performance, cash, risks, major opportunities and corrective actions.
  
• Build management depth, succession capacity and a culture in which commitments, owners, deadlines and evidence are explicit.
  
• Represent the company with strategic customers, financiers, regulators, development partners, suppliers and industry stakeholders when delegated.
  

P&L, Cash and Financial Control

• 
  
• Own consolidated and divisional revenue, gross profit, EBITDA, operating expenses and cash-flow performance.
  
• Deliver budgets without sacrificing margin, collection quality, project quality or customer trust.
  
• Chair monthly business reviews covering P&L, cash conversion, receivables, payables, stock, project exposure and forecast accuracy.
  
• Enforce credit limits, approval thresholds, cost controls and segregation of duties; no undocumented commercial exceptions.
  
• Maintain a fully loaded wage bill within the Board-approved guardrail and ensure every role has measurable economic value.
  

Engineering and Project Delivery

• 
  
• Ensure solutions are correctly diagnosed, designed, costed and reviewed before commercial commitment; measure before prescribing.
  
• Govern the end-to-end project lifecycle: qualification, survey, design, BOM, costing, contract review, procurement, assembly, QA, dispatch, installation, commissioning, documentation, invoicing and close-out.
  
• Approve delivery plans for material projects and maintain visibility of schedule, margin-at-completion, variation orders, risks and customer obligations.
  
• Establish non-negotiable technical, safety and quality standards; ensure defects, callbacks and warranty issues produce root-cause action.
  
• Develop profitable service and maintenance contracts that protect customer uptime and generate recurring revenue.
  

Trading Division Growth and Margin

• 
  
• Build a disciplined product-expansion pipeline based on market demand, technical fit, supplier reliability, landed economics and working-capital impact.
  
• Protect margin through customer segmentation, pricing architecture, discount authority, value selling and rapid response to competitor movements.
  
• Move the sales force from passive repeat-order taking to structured hunting, account development, pipeline management and cross-selling.
  
• Drive brand enrichment, channel development and stronger relationships with dealers, traders, technicians, corporates, NGOs and institutional customers.
  
• Reduce ageing and slow-moving inventory while improving availability of high-velocity, high-contribution products.
  

Commercial Operating System

• 
  
• Own a single customer master, lead qualification standard, visit calendar, pipeline, proposal tracker and weekly commercial dashboard.
  
• Enforce the rule that an opportunity without a complete record, value, stage, probability, next action, due date and evidence does not exist.
  
• Maintain sufficient qualified pipeline coverage to support the revenue plan and lead weekly Sales–Marketing–Engineering reviews.
  
• Strengthen key-account plans, tender qualification, proposal quality, follow-up speed and customer retention.
  
• Build commercially credible positioning around water security, uptime, lifecycle cost, compliance, sustainability and asset value—without unsupported claims.
  

Operations, Supply Chain and Systems

• 
  
• Ensure accurate stock records, disciplined demand planning, reliable replenishment and accountable custody across locations.
  
• Improve import planning for long-lead items, supplier performance, landed-cost accuracy and procurement transparency.
  
• Make ERPNext the single operating record for customers, quotations, orders, stock, projects, service requests, approvals and management reporting.
  
• Enforce SOPs, service-level agreements, ticketing and approval workflows; repeated non-compliance must have consequences.
  
• Maintain business continuity, regulatory compliance, safety, insurance and risk controls appropriate to the company’s operations.
  

People and Performance

• 
  
• Set clear scorecards and quarterly OKRs for every functional head; review performance objectively and act decisively on sustained underperformance.
  
• Recruit, coach and retain commercially strong, technically credible and execution-oriented managers.
  
• Align incentives to gross profit, cash collection, delivery quality and controllable outcomes—not revenue alone.
  
• Create a high-accountability culture that rewards initiative, customer ownership, learning and completion.
  
• Ensure organizational structure and headcount remain proportionate to revenue, gross profit and workload.
  

Qualifications

• 
  
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, Finance, Operations, Supply Chain or a related discipline; an engineering foundation is strongly preferred.
  
• Postgraduate qualification such as an MBA is advantageous but does not substitute for demonstrated operating results.
  
• At least 10 years’ progressive leadership experience, including 5 years with enterprise or business-unit P&L responsibility.
  
• Proven leadership in engineering services, EPC, industrial equipment, water, energy, manufacturing, technical distribution or a closely related sector.
  
• Strong financial literacy: P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, project costing, landed cost, margin analysis and working-capital management.
  
• Working knowledge of ERP/CRM systems, data-based management and Kenyan commercial, employment, tax, safety and regulatory environments.
  
• Evidence of growing revenue and gross profit while improving cash conversion, working capital and operating discipline.
  
• Experience managing technical delivery and a trading/distribution operation, including procurement, inventory and multi-channel sales.
  
• Experience leading multifunctional teams and holding senior managers accountable through operating reviews.
  

How to Apply
If you are up to the challenge and possess the necessary qualifications and experience, please send your CV, quoting only the job title in the email subject (General Manager - Engineering), to vacancies@corporatestaffing.co.ke before 30th September 2026
NB: Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. If you do not receive any communication from us within two weeks of your application, kindly consider your application unsuccessful. We appreciate your interest and thank you for applying