This is an in-office role

This position is based in Cape Town and is worked from our office. It is not a remote or hybrid role, so you'll need to be able to travel in every working day.

1-grid is a South African web hosting and cloud solutions business based in Cape Town. The company supports entrepreneurs and small to medium-sized businesses with domains, web hosting, email, security and related digital services, delivered through local customer-facing and technical teams. The business is pursuing sustainable growth, operational maturity and a consistently strong customer experience in a competitive, subscription-based technology market.

Role Purpose

The General Manager is accountable for the overall performance of 1-grid. The role leads strategy, commercial delivery and day-to-day business execution with an ownership mindset, ensuring that growth, profitability, customer outcomes, operational resilience and people performance reinforce one another.

Working directly with the Company Head and through departmental leaders, the General Manager aligns priorities, resources, performance rhythms and cross-functional execution across Sales, Marketing, Customer Experience and Support, Technology and Infrastructure, Finance, Human Resources and related business functions.

Scope and Key Relationships

Provides enterprise-wide leadership across the business and integrates departmental plans into one operating agenda.
Leads and develops departmental heads and holds leaders accountable for agreed outcomes, standards and timelines.
Partners with the Company Head on long-term direction, investment priorities, business transformation and material commercial decisions.
Works closely with Finance on budgets, forecasts, management reporting, pricing, margins, cost control and product viability.
Works with Human Resources on organisational design, workforce planning, leadership capability, performance management, succession and employee engagement.
Represents the business with selected customers, suppliers, partners and other stakeholders where senior leadership involvement is required.

Key Accountabilities

Strategy and Business Leadership

Own the end-to-end performance of the business and translate the company direction into clear annual and quarterly priorities.
Develop, communicate and execute strategies that strengthen revenue, profitability, market competitiveness and long-term business value.
Establish an effective operating cadence for leadership reviews, decision-making, risk escalation and delivery tracking.
Ensure departmental plans, resources and measures are aligned to company objectives and customer commitments.
Lead strategic projects and transformation initiatives that improve scalability, automation, service quality and business efficiency.

Commercial Growth and Market Development

Drive sustainable revenue growth, customer acquisition, retention and market expansion in collaboration with Sales, Marketing and Customer Experience leaders.
Identify and evaluate opportunities for new hosting, cloud, managed service and adjacent digital offerings.
Sponsor go-to-market priorities, strategic partnerships and commercial initiatives based on customer insight, operational readiness and financial viability.
Ensure pricing, packaging, margins and commercial terms support competitive positioning and sustainable returns.
Use market, customer and business performance data to test assumptions and guide investment decisions.

Operational Excellence and Service Delivery

Oversee day-to-day business performance and ensure effective coordination across customer-facing, technical and enabling functions.
Define and monitor meaningful business and operational KPIs, identify underperformance and ensure corrective action is owned and completed.
Drive process discipline, clear ownership, data integrity and reliable management reporting.
Oversee cross-functional initiatives involving customer retention, service stability, product performance and operational improvement.
Ensure operational risks, major incidents and recurring service problems are escalated, investigated and addressed at the appropriate level.
Promote practical automation and process improvement that reduce failure demand, manual effort and avoidable customer friction.

Financial Management and Performance

Lead the annual planning and budgeting process with Finance and departmental leaders.
Review forecasts, management accounts, revenue performance, gross margin, operating costs and cash-impacting decisions.
Ensure leaders understand and manage the financial consequences of operational and commercial choices.
Identify revenue, margin and cost optimisation opportunities without compromising critical service, control or customer outcomes.
Provide clear, accurate and timely performance updates to the Company Head, including variances, risks, decisions required and recovery actions.

Customer Experience and Brand Trust

Champion customer-centric decision-making across the company and ensure that customer impact is considered in commercial, product and operational priorities.
Improve customer retention, satisfaction, resolution quality and the overall reliability of service delivery.
Ensure customer feedback, contact drivers, complaints and service data are converted into measurable improvement actions.
Align growth activity with the business capacity and service readiness required to deliver on customer promises.
Protect and strengthen 1-grid's reputation for reliability, responsiveness, transparency and customer care.

People, Leadership and Culture

Build, lead and develop a capable, accountable and collaborative leadership team.
Set clear expectations for leaders, conduct structured performance reviews and ensure follow-through on agreed actions.
Partner with Human Resources on workforce planning, recruitment, performance, capability development, succession and retention.
Create leadership depth by coaching managers, clarifying decision rights and reducing dependency on individual knowledge holders.
Champion a culture of accountability, innovation, learning, teamwork, respectful challenge and high performance.
Ensure company values are visible in leadership behaviour, people decisions and the way teams work together.

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Ensure the business operates in line with approved company policies, legal obligations, contractual commitments and relevant industry requirements.
Maintain appropriate visibility of strategic, operational, financial, people, customer and technology risks.
Ensure material risks have accountable owners, proportionate controls, clear escalation routes and tracked mitigation actions.
Promote sound information handling, business continuity, security awareness and responsible decision-making across departments.
Escalate material issues promptly to the Company Head with clear options and recommendations.

Performance Outcomes and Success Measures

Business performance: delivery against the approved operating plan and financial expectations. Measures: revenue growth; gross margin; operating cost performance; forecast accuracy; delivery of strategic priorities.
Customer: improved retention, service quality and trust. Measures: customer retention/churn; satisfaction measures; complaint trends; resolution quality; recurring contact and failure demand.
Operations: reliable, scalable and efficient execution across departments. Measures: service availability; incident and problem trends; process cycle times; automation benefits; overdue corrective actions.
Commercial development: viable growth initiatives move from opportunity to measurable results. Measures: pipeline quality; conversion; product or service contribution; partnership outcomes; time from approval to launch.
People and leadership: an accountable leadership team with stronger capability and succession depth. Measures: leadership objectives; performance review completion; critical vacancy and retention trends; succession coverage; engagement actions.
Governance and risk: material risks are visible, owned and addressed. Measures: risk actions closed; audit or compliance findings; policy adherence; business continuity readiness; quality of management reporting.

Decision-Making and Authority

Makes operational and people decisions within delegated authority, approved budgets and company policy.
Recommends material investments, structural changes, senior appointments, pricing changes and strategic commitments to the Company Head where approval is required.
Allocates leadership attention and resources across approved priorities and resolves cross-functional conflicts.
Intervenes where service, financial, customer, people or compliance performance is materially off track.
Ensures decisions are recorded, communicated to accountable owners and followed through to completion.

Required Qualifications and Experience

Bachelor's degree in Business Management, Commerce, Finance, Technology Management or a related field. A relevant postgraduate qualification is advantageous.
Minimum of 10 years' senior leadership experience, including accountability for multi-departmental operations and commercial outcomes.
Demonstrated experience translating strategy into operating plans, measurable priorities and sustained execution.
Strong commercial, financial and operational management experience, including budgeting, forecasting and performance analysis.
Proven experience leading and developing managers across different professional disciplines.
Experience in technology, SaaS, ISP, cloud, hosting, telecommunications, managed services or another subscription-based business is highly advantageous.
Working understanding of service delivery, customer lifecycle management, recurring-revenue economics and technology-enabled operations is advantageous.
Demonstrated success leading change, process improvement or business transformation in a growing organisation.

Knowledge and Competencies

Strategic and commercial judgement: Connects market opportunity, customer need, operational capability and financial return.
Execution discipline: Turns priorities into accountable plans, removes obstacles and maintains follow-through.
Financial acumen: Interprets business performance, challenges assumptions and makes commercially responsible decisions.
Leadership and coaching: Builds capable leaders, gives direct feedback and creates clarity without unnecessary control.
Customer orientation: Understands the operational and commercial value of reliable, low-friction customer experiences.
Analytical decision-making: Uses credible data, identifies root causes and distinguishes urgent symptoms from structural problems.
Communication and influence: Communicates clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders and handles difficult trade-offs constructively.
Change leadership: Creates alignment around change, sequences implementation realistically and monitors adoption.
Risk awareness: Recognises material business risks early and ensures proportionate action and escalation.
Entrepreneurial ownership: Acts with urgency, resourcefulness and accountability while protecting sustainable business value.

Leadership Behaviours

Sets a small number of clear priorities and keeps the organisation focused on them.
Balances pace with sound judgement and does not allow avoidable indecision to delay execution.
Encourages constructive challenge, surfaces bad news early and responds without blame-driven behaviour.
Holds leaders accountable consistently while providing the context, authority and support needed to deliver.
Makes customer, people and commercial trade-offs transparently and explains the reasoning behind key decisions.
Models calm, credible leadership during incidents, uncertainty and periods of change.

Values Alignment

The General Manager is expected to embody and actively promote 1-grid's values in decisions, leadership behaviour and the performance standards applied across the business: Accountability, Customer Delight, Teamwork, Inclusivity, Respect, Transparency, Quality and Collaboration.

Candidate Profile

The strongest candidate will be a commercially minded, hands-on business leader who is comfortable moving between strategy, financial performance, operational detail and people leadership. They will understand that growth in a hosting and subscription-services environment depends on reliable platforms, disciplined execution, clear product economics, strong customer retention and leaders who take ownership.

They should bring mature judgement, resilience and the confidence to challenge constructively, while remaining accessible to teams and able to create alignment across technical, customer-facing and enabling functions.

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