Bahrain Country Head - Sales and Operations

Bahrain Country Manager

Use Local L.L.C-FZ

Company: Use Local L.L.C-FZ ("Local")

Location: Bahrain (Manama), with regular reporting to Dubai HQ

Reports to: Founder & COO

Type: Full-time

About Local

Local is a QR-based dine-in payments platform live with restaurants across the UAE and Bahrain, with Saudi Arabia in pre-launch. We are backed by 500 Sanabil, 21VC, and VentureSouq. Bahrain is one of our most established markets by live merchant count and represents a significant share of company-wide GMV.

The role

Local's Bahrain market is looking to hire a Country Head to own sales and operations together, alongside day-to-day P&L and people management for the full on-ground team.

We need someone who can take direct, permanent ownership of this scope: growing the merchant base, running day-to-day operations, managing the Bahrain team, and being the single point of accountability for the market's performance to the Founder/COO.

Responsibilities

Sales and merchant acquisition

• Own the Bahrain sales pipeline and merchant acquisition targets, including weekly entity and location targets.
• Own pricing and commercial negotiation with merchants, including take rate discussions, holding the agreed floor, and responding to competitor pricing pressure.
• Own competitive strategy for the market, tracking competitor moves (pricing, onboarding fee waivers, poaching attempts) and recommending pricing or retention responses.
• Design and deliver sales training for new team members, and own ongoing SDR/AE performance management including warning letters and target-setting where needed.
• Own outreach to new, POS-ready merchants Local can activate without integration work.

Operations

• Own onboarding turnaround time from signed to live against the agreed target, and own the first-30-day capture rate for newly onboarded merchants.
• Own merchant support SLAs, including after-hours cover, and own resolution of stalled or at-risk merchant accounts.
• Manage on-the-ground merchant incentive programmes (e.g. staff/waiter incentive schemes) including structure, approval routing, and payment accuracy.
• Coordinate hardware and stock procurement for Bahrain merchants (e.g. tablets, QR stands) including quotes and quantities.

People and team management

• Manage the full on-ground Bahrain team: sales development reps, account executives, and operations staff.
• Own hiring recommendations and headcount planning for the Bahrain team.
• Lead the Bahrain weekly leadership (L10-style) meeting, tracking issues, action items, and owners to closure.

Finance and reporting

• Own day-to-day P&L visibility for Bahrain, including GMV, take rate, and cost tracking.
• Operate within an agreed discretionary budget for operational spend, with all spend evidenced by receipts within 48 hours and reconciled monthly against agreed categories.
• Coordinate Bahrain payroll and statutory requirements (e.g. GOSI) with the finance team.

Reporting to leadership

• Report market performance, risks, and blockers to the Founder/COO on a regular cadence, with clear owner and date attached to every open item.
• Flag structural or resourcing gaps (e.g. where the Country Manager scope has become too broad for one person) with a recommendation rather than just a status update.

What we're looking for

• Proven experience running a full commercial market (sales and operations together) for a startup or scale-up, ideally in payments, fintech, or a merchant-facing platform.
• Track record of hitting merchant acquisition and revenue targets while also owning service quality and support SLAs.
• Comfortable managing a small, mixed team (sales and ops) directly, including performance management and hiring.
• Strong commercial negotiation skills, with the judgement to hold pricing under competitive pressure.
• Financially literate: comfortable owning budget, take rate, and basic P&L tracking without a dedicated finance partner on the ground.
• Based in or willing to relocate to Bahrain.
• Fluent in Arabic and English, spoken and written: this role deals directly with local merchants, staff, and regulatory/statutory bodies (e.g. GOSI) day to day.
• Comfortable with the pace and ambiguity of an early-stage, multi-market startup.

What Local offers

• Full ownership of one of Local's most established markets, with direct reporting line to the Founder/COO.
• The opportunity to shape how the Country Manager role is resourced and supported as Bahrain scales.
• Competitive compensation, commensurate with a senior market-leadership hire.

Ability to commute/relocate

• Manama: Reliably commute or planning to relocate before starting work (Required)

Language

• arabic (Required)

Willingness to travel

• 50% (Required)

Work Location: In person