Director, Strategy & Commercial Excellence, Middle East & Africa (MEA)

Posted:
2/19/2026, 11:43:41 PM

Experience Level(s):
Expert or higher ⋅ Senior

Field(s):
Business & Strategy ⋅ Sales & Account Management

Workplace Type:
Remote

Work Schedule

Standard (Mon-Fri)

Environmental Conditions

Office

Job Description

Director, Strategy & Commercial Excellence, Middle East & Africa (MEA)

At Thermo Fisher Scientific, our mission is clear: to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer. In the Middle East & Africa (MEA), this means unlocking growth in complex, high-potential markets while strengthening commercial execution and customer impact.

The Director, Strategy & Commercial Excellence, MEA is responsible for driving commercial performance, execution rigor, and scalable growth across the Middle East & Africa region.

This role serves as the primary commercial excellence leader for MEA, translating APMEA strategy into country-level execution, strengthening direct and channel effectiveness, and improving performance visibility and decision quality across highly diverse markets.

Operating in a complex, developing-market context, the role focuses on practical execution, standard work, cadence, analytics, and capability building, while partnering closely with country leaders, channel teams, and regional functions. A strong understanding of Thermo Fisher’s operating model and portfolio is essential.

Key Responsibilities

Commercial Excellence & Execution (MEA)

  • Lead the Commercial Excellence agenda across MEA, ensuring consistent execution of regional priorities.
  • Embed standard work across:
    • Sales performance management
    • Forecasting and pipeline rigor
    • Funnel health, win-rate, and productivity analytics
  • Elevate the quality of commercial reviews (MBRs / QBRs) from reporting to decision-making.
  • Support country leaders with structured problem-solving (A3s, recovery plans, deep dives).

Strategy & Marketing (MEA)

  • Translate APMEA strategy into MEA-specific priorities, initiatives, and execution plans.
  • Support MEA country STRAPs (strategy plans) by:
    • Ensuring clarity, rigor, and comparability
    • Tracking execution progress and risks
  • Ability to develop marketing plans and strategy including digital, e-commerce and execute through country teams and COE’s driving demand.
  • Well versed with alla aspects of digital marketing, ecommerce and lead generation.
  • Identify cross-country themes, constraints, and growth opportunities unique to MEA and escalate appropriately.

Channel Management & Partner Effectiveness

  • Drive Channel Management Standard Work across MEA, including:
    • Partner segmentation and coverage models
    • Partner performance scorecards and reviews
    • Governance, cadence, and accountability
  • Partner with country leaders to optimize direct vs. channel GTM models by market.
  • Improve partner productivity, execution consistency, and customer experience through disciplined channel management.
  • Act as the regional connector between APMEA channel frameworks and local execution realities.

Commercial Analytics & Performance Visibility

  • Establish strong commercial performance visibility across MEA:
    • Revenue, funnel, win rates, pipeline quality
    • Channel vs. direct performance
  • Partner with Finance and Digital teams to improve forecast accuracy and transparency.
  • Use data to drive fact-based decisions, prioritization, and resource allocation.

Capability Building & Enablement

  • Build commercial capability across MEA sales and channel teams through:
    • Training, tools, and playbooks
    • Best-practice sharing across countries
  • Support adoption of regional tools and programs (e.g., sales effectiveness tools, incentive apps, win-room mechanisms).
  • Strengthen commercial maturity while respecting local market constraints and realities.

Stakeholder Management & Governance

  • Act as a trusted commercial partner to MEA country leaders.
  • Represent MEA in regional/ global Commercial Excellence forums and reviews.
  • Ensure alignment between MEA execution and regional/ divisional governance, cadence, and expectations.

Qualifications & Experience

  • Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree preferred.
  • 15+ years of experience across commercial operations, sales excellence, strategy execution, or consulting.
  • Demonstrated experience working across emerging and developing markets, ideally within MEA.
  • Strong understanding of direct and channel-based GTM models.
  • Proven ability to drive execution in resource-constrained, high-variance environments.
  • Strong analytical, influencing, and stakeholder management skills.
  • Experience within life sciences, healthcare, industrials, or adjacent sectors preferred.

Thermo Fisher Scientific

Website: https://www.thermofisher.com/

Headquarter Location: Waltham, Massachusetts, United States

Employee Count: 10001+

Year Founded: 2006

IPO Status: Public

Last Funding Type: Post-IPO Debt

Industries: Bioinformatics ⋅ Biotechnology ⋅ Cloud Data Services ⋅ Consulting ⋅ Health Care ⋅ Life Science ⋅ Management Information Systems ⋅ Office Supplies ⋅ Precision Medicine