Research & Strategy Manager

Responsibilities:

Market Research & Intelligence:

• Lead primary and secondary research across target African markets, covering market size, demand drivers, consumer and brand spending behaviour, and regulatory conditions.
• Build and maintain a competitive intelligence function: map incumbent agencies, promoters, venue operators and production houses per market; track their pricing, client rosters, partnerships and expansion moves.
• Monitor the macro and sector environment FX and repatriation risk, advertising and sponsorship spend trends, event regulation, tax and permitting regimes, tourism and aviation flows and translate implications for the business.
• Establish and own a single source of truth for market data: a maintained research repository, market dossiers, and a quarterly intelligence briefing to the leadership team.

Market Entry & Expansion Strategy:

• Develop market entry strategies and business cases for each priority market covering entry mode (organic, JV, acquisition, agency partnership or franchise/licence), capital requirement, timeline, revenue model and risk profile.
• Build and maintain a market prioritisation framework and scorecard that ranks opportunities on market attractiveness versus the company's right to win.
• Size and validate new business lines and adjacent revenue streams (e.g. IP-owned events and cultural properties, venue and asset management, content and media rights, technical production services, sponsorship sales representation, ticketing and data).
• Conduct feasibility studies and financial modelling: revenue projections, unit economics, break-even analysis, scenario and sensitivity testing.
• Identify and assess potential partners, local representatives, acquisition targets and JV counterparties; support commercial diligence and negotiation with analysis.

Strategic Planning & Execution Support:

• Own the annual and multi-year strategic planning cycle: facilitate planning sessions, consolidate business-unit inputs, and produce the corporate strategy document and operating priorities.
• Translate approved strategy into execution roadmaps with clear owners, milestones, budgets and success metrics; drive the governance cadence that keeps them on track.
• Design and maintain the strategic KPI dashboard; report progress against expansion targets to the executive team and Board, and flag deviations early with recommended corrective action.
• Act as an internal consultant to Business Development, Marketing and Operations, pressure-testing pitches, pricing decisions, bid strategy and client proposals with market evidence.

Stakeholder & Knowledge Management

• Prepare Board-grade papers, investment memos and executive presentations that stand up to scrutiny.
• Build a network of external sources: industry associations, research firms, investment promotion agencies, chambers of commerce, trade bodies and market consultants.
• Represent the company in relevant industry forums and contribute thought leadership that strengthens its positioning as a Pan-African player.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Economics, Business Administration, Marketing, Statistics, Finance or a related field.
• MBA or a relevant master's degree is an advantage.
• 6–8 years' progressive experience in strategy, market research, corporate development, management consulting, or commercial/business intelligence.
• Demonstrable experience scaling a business into new markets: the candidate must be able to walk through market entry work they personally led or materially contributed to, and what commercially resulted from it.
• Proven Pan-African market exposure: multi-country research, cross-border commercial work, or experience operating in two or more African markets.
• Strong financial modelling and business case development experience; comfort building models from incomplete data.
• Experience in events, experiential marketing, media, entertainment, hospitality, FMCG, telecoms or another sponsorship-adjacent sector is a strong advantage.
• Prior experience presenting to executive committees or Boards.