JOB PURPOSE
The VP – Commercials is responsible for leading the commercial strategy, financial performance, and monetization of the Darna loyalty programme, ensuring sustainable revenue growth, profitability, and strong economic foundations across all loyalty products, partnerships, and initiatives. This role oversees commercial planning, pricing and funding models, business case governance, and strategic partnership monetization across the Aldar ecosystem. The VP – Commercials ensures disciplined investment decisions, scalable commercial frameworks, and measurable value creation for Aldar, partners, and members.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategic Responsibilities
- Define and lead the commercial strategy for Darna's loyalty products and propositions, ensuring clear value creation for Aldar, partners, and members.
- Establish scalable pricing, funding, and monetization models that balance member attractiveness with financial sustainability.
- Translate programme growth ambitions into clear commercial targets, revenue streams, and contribution margin frameworks.
- Partner closely with the SVP – Loyalty to align commercial priorities with long-term programme strategy and ecosystem expansion.
- Govern investment prioritization across loyalty initiatives, ensuring disciplined capital allocation and return optimization.
- Establish stage-gate governance frameworks for commercial approvals from concept through launch and scale-up.
- Identify and unlock cross-loyalty, cross-business, and ecosystem monetization opportunities that drive incremental revenue growth.
Functional Responsibilities
- Lead the development, validation, and evaluation of business cases for new propositions, partnerships, and programme expansions.
- Define financial assumptions, ROI models, breakeven structures, and funding frameworks for all commercial initiatives.
- Own the commercial performance of the Darna programme, tracking revenue, costs, margins, and profitability across all products and partnerships.
- Collaborate with group finance to define annual and multi-year financial planning cycles, including scenario modeling, forecasting, and financial performance reviews.
- Establish commercial frameworks for loyalty partnerships, including revenue sharing, funding structures, and value exchange mechanisms.
- Ensure commercial consistency and scalability across partnership agreements and activation models.
- Secure and manage high-value partnerships across industries such as banking, airlines, telcos, utilities, and e-commerce.
- Operate, scale partnerships and identify new growth opportunities.
- Lead strategic projects.
- Maximize partner and tenant ROI by ensuring loyalty initiatives drive measurable improvements in sales penetration, frequency, and customer value.
- Identify and manage commercial and financial risks related to loyalty funding structures and partnership agreements.
- Establish governance controls to monitor revenue leakage, cost overruns, and underperforming propositions.
- Ensure compliance with Aldar governance, audit, and financial management standards across commercial activities.
- Support audits and commercial reviews related to financial performance and commercial controls.
Insights, Decision Support & Executive Engagement
- Translate financial and commercial insights into clear strategic recommendations for executive leadership decision-making.
- Provide regular commercial performance updates and insights to the SVP – Loyalty and senior stakeholders.
- Represent the commercial perspective of Darna in governance forums, leadership reviews, and cross-functional decision-making processes.
People Development
- Coach and mentor team members to strengthen commercial acumen, financial modeling, negotiation, and partnership management capabilities.
- Foster a culture of commercial discipline, accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.
- Promote collaboration across marketing, finance, product, and technology teams to embed commercial thinking across the Darna ecosystem.
RELATED YEARS OF EXPERIENCE :
Minimum 10+ years of experience in commercial strategy, partnerships, financial planning, revenue management, or monetization roles, preferably within loyalty programmes, banking, payments, retail ecosystems, hospitality, or large-scale consumer businesses.
YOE IN MANAGERIAL POSITION:
Minimum 3+ years of managerial experience leading commercial, financial, or partnership teams, with accountability for revenue performance and strategic outcomes.
FIELD OF EXPERIENCE:
Commercial Strategy and Monetization, Financial Planning and Revenue Forecasting, Business Case Development and Investment Governance, Partnership and Ecosystem Commercial Management, Pricing and Funding Model Design, Revenue Growth and Profitability Management, Loyalty Programmes or Customer Ecosystems, Retail, Hospitality, Banking, or Multi-Partner Platforms
TECHNICAL AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
- Strong commercial and financial acumen, including financial modellng, ROI analysis, and business case development
- Proven ability to structure and negotiate complex partnerships and revenue-sharing agreements
- Solid understanding of monetization, pricing, and funding models
- Strong analytical mindset with ability to translate insights into strategic decisions
- Excellent stakeholder management and executive communication skills
- Strong governance and risk awareness, with ability to implement commercial controls
- Ability to lead in complex, multi-stakeholder environments
- Strategic thinker with strong execution focus and results orientation
- Ability to lead strategic projects from inception through to execution
QUALIFICATION:
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance, Economics, or related field
- Preferred: MBA or relevant postgraduate qualification in Finance, Strategy, or Commercial Management
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