About This Job:

Q-Sourcing Limited trading as Q-Sourcing Servtec is a manpower management solutions firm operating in the East African Region in the countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and South Sudan.

On behalf of our client Imani Africa Industrial Co. Limited, we are looking for a skilled and competent OPERATIONS MANAGER to work in Kampala.

Reports To:   Founder / Managing Director

Department: Executive / Operations

Location:    Kampala, Uganda, with field travel across Uganda and future regional travel

About Imani

Imani is building a new FMCG category in Uganda and East Africa: compact, soluble cleaning and personal-care sheets that replace bulky liquid products with lighter, easier-to-store, easier-to-distribute alternatives. The company will first create demand through direct B2B sales to hotels, factories, offices, schools, hospitals, cleaning companies and institutional buyers, then expand through a disciplined regional sub-distributor program. We are looking for practical, commercially sharp operators who can build systems, protect margins, move stock responsibly and execute with speed.

Role Summary

The COO will turn Imani from a founder-led import and launch project into a disciplined FMCG operating company. This person will own the operating system across sales governance, stock control, logistics, customer operations, reporting, compliance coordination, margin discipline and regional scale-up. The ideal candidate has senior FMCG or commercial operations leadership experience in Uganda, ideally as a COO, Head of FMCG, Country Manager, General Manager, Commercial Operations Director, or similar role within a strong FMCG, personal-care, detergents, beverages, distribution or manufacturing business.

Mission

Build the operating backbone for Imani Uganda: people, process, controls, reporting, route-to-market discipline and regional readiness.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES 

Operating leadership

• Own the company operating rhythm, weekly KPIs, management meetings, issue escalation and cross-functional priorities.
• Translate the business plan into practical monthly execution plans with clear owners and deadlines.
• Create and enforce SOPs for sales operations, inventory, deliveries, returns, documentation and customer service.

Commercial governance

• Protect Imani’s pricing discipline, gross margin and customer segmentation strategy.
• Support the Head of Sales with account prioritization, pipeline quality, proposal discipline and customer terms.
• Negotiate with key B2B buyers, logistics providers, suppliers and future regional partners when required.

Stock, logistics and risk control

• Ensure accurate stock counts, batch traceability, loss/damage controls, dispatch controls and reorder signals.
• Work with Inventory and Accounts to reconcile physical stock with inventory value and landed cost.
• Coordinate compliance documentation, import files and standards-related requirements with relevant owners.

People and scale

• Hire, manage and coach the early operating team, including sales, operations, inventory and accounts.
• Create role scorecards, weekly reporting templates and accountability structures.
• Prepare regional expansion playbooks for Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and other approved territories.
• Support implementation of livestock improvement programmes including Artificial Insemination, disease control and pasture development.

Requirements

Required Experience and Qualifications

• 3-5 years’ experience in FMCG, commercial operations, route-to-market, distribution, manufacturing or country operations experience.
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration or any related field.
• Prior senior leadership experience in Uganda; ideally Head of FMCG, Country Manager, General Manager, COO, Commercial Operations Director, or equivalent.
• Strong understanding of Uganda trade channels, B2B selling, institutional buyers, distributors, wholesalers and field execution.
• Demonstrated ability to build operating systems from scratch, not only manage an established machine.
• Strong command of gross margin, inventory discipline, cash collection and reporting.
• Comfortable working in a high-ownership startup environment with limited bureaucracy and high accountability.

Added advantage

• Postgraduate or master’s in business administration or any related field.
• Experience in detergents, personal care, cleaning products, beverages, household goods or imported FMCG.
• Regional exposure across East Africa.
• Experience launching new product categories or building distributor networks.
• Working knowledge of Zoho Books, ERP/CRM systems or inventory systems.

Key Performance Indicators

• Monthly revenue and gross profit vs target.
• Gross margin protection and discount control.
• Stock accuracy above 98%.
• Customer order cycle time and on-time dispatch.
• Debtor days and cash collection discipline.
• SOP adoption and weekly reporting compliance.

Competencies

• High ownership: treats the role as a builder role, not a maintenance role.
• Commercial discipline: protects price, margin, cash and customer quality.
• Operational detail: comfortable with documents, trackers, SOPs, stock counts and follow-up.
• Field orientation: willing to visit customers, warehouses, distributors and frontline teams.
• Integrity: handles inventory, cash, customer commitments and company information responsibly.