Business Development Associate at Asoko Insight

Asoko Insight, the amazing company (see coverage on HBR, FT, Quartz Africa) building Africa’s leading online platform for company information, is expanding its sales team.

The Business Development Associate will generate leads, qualify opportunities, and manage the sales cycle to close business in the Financial Services sector. This is an outbound sales role suitable for a ‘hunter’ type mentality for a professional who possesses high levels of energy, passion, and self-motivation. The role is designed to evolve and develop into a Sales Team Lead position in KYC Compliance in tune with our rapidly growing business and expansion plans.

This is an opportunity to join an innovative start-up changing the face of Corporate Africa and backed by a strong team of respected VCs.

Roles & Responsibilities:

The Business Development Associate will be responsible for building and managing a robust client base in the financial services sector. This will include;

• Prospecting, generating new business and hitting sales targets. Your performance will be measured by your ability to bring in new clients.  
• Identify, develop and conclude commercial agreements at the regional and global level;
• Work closely with the Marketing & Sales team;
• Representing and promoting Asoko at events and conferences;
• Travelling to meetings and/or relevant events throughout the EMEA region;
• Support the distribution of sales and marketing materials;
• Manage, and be ultimately responsible for, administration of sales (e.g. Quotes/Invoices) and related items;
• Collaborate with Asoko’s founders and the Sales Team;
• Ad-hoc, work-related tasks the Head of sales and CEO  will deem relevant to the continuing or progress of the Company.

Key attributes of this role include:

• You have experience selling to financial clients. You know how to communicate with professionals working in Banks, Private Equity, Asset Management, Investment Banking and related areas;
• You’re proficient in identifying financial client clusters and finding the best ways to approach them;
• You have a skill for selling a new product or offering, something that has never been sold before;
• You think strategically about what companies and individuals to pursue and how to pursue them;
• You are tenacious and don’t give up;
• You like people, can talk to anyone, and make friends easily. You’re equally comfortable talking with the Chief Compliance Officer or analyst teams;
• You love data and using it to inform your strategy and drive better decision-making;
• You care about what we do. You know this isn’t just about getting companies to connect, it’s about addressing the deficiency in information between the global business community, and helping companies comply with stringent KYC & AML regulations.

Qualifications:

• 1-2 yrs experience in financial data sales, consultancy sales or related industries, at least 1-2 of which are carrying a sales quota;
• Bachelor’s degree;
• Excellent written and oral communication skills;
• Understanding the information services industry and Financial services;
• Passionate about the Africa business environment;
• Good command of Salesforce, Intercom (or similar) and prospecting software;
• Second language (French, German, Spanish, Arabic or Portuguese) is an added bonus;

Benefits:

• Competitive and performance-based salary
• Share options 
• Health Insurance Cover  
• Exposure at all levels of the company
• Strong training from experienced management, great career progression opportunities
• Taking part in a dynamic and exciting start-up that will transform access to corporate information across Africa