Job Of A Territory CEO/Managing Director
This blog post will make more sense if you read my previous post first: Org Chart for My Zambia Gold Trading Business Idea.
I have not yet decided whether I want to refer to the managers and entrepreneurs operating in various countries as Managing Directors or Territory CEOs. For simplicity, I will refer to them as “Territory CEOs” throughout this article.
This picture is of the Territory CEOs.
What Is the Job of a Territory CEO?
The Territory CEO will be responsible for managing and growing the gold business within their assigned territory. They will have significant autonomy over their operations and will have the freedom to run their business in the way they believe is most effective.
That autonomy will come with accountability. Territory CEOs will be expected to meet and maintain specific performance metrics, including year-over-year sales growth, profitability, operational efficiency, and other key performance indicators. They will also be responsible for taking on the management and operational duties necessary to build a successful business.
These responsibilities could include:
Supplier procurement
Supplier due diligence
Gold product verification and testing
Supply-chain development
Building and managing local supplier networks
Relationship management
Customer service
Logistics and transportation coordination
Regulatory and compliance oversight
Hiring and managing employees
Developing new business relationships
Managing local operations
The Territory CEO will ultimately be responsible for managing significant amounts of capital and gold inventory. Because of this, the position will require someone who is trustworthy, commercially minded, operationally capable, and able to make sound decisions independently.
Each Territory CEO will also have the ability to build out their own team within their country. They will have considerable flexibility in determining who they hire, where they operate, how their office is structured, and how they conduct their day-to-day business.
A Global Network of Territory CEOs
The broader goal is to build a network of Territory CEOs operating in gold-producing countries around the world.
Each Territory CEO will be responsible for sourcing and purchasing gold within their territory and coordinating the process of moving that gold to the appropriate buyer destination.
The preferred buyer destinations would initially be Dubai or the East Coast of the United States (the gold refineries in these countries), but we are not going to limit ourselves geographically. If a customer wants gold delivered somewhere else, we will go where the customer is.
Ultimately, this business is about creating a global network that serves two sides of the market: reliable gold suppliers and qualified buyers.
The objective is simple: serve the client, support one another across the organization, and build a business that can grow successfully over the long term.
The Support Team
This picture is of the support team.
The Support Team
The Support Team exists to directly support and assist the Territory CEOs in building and operating their businesses. While the Territory CEOs are responsible for their respective countries, the Support Team provides the infrastructure and resources necessary for them to succeed.
This includes handling gold payments, compliance, marketing, technology, human resources, operations, security, and other critical functions.
Our role is to support the Territory CEOs in their respective countries while building the overall organization into something exceptional.
I would classify both the Support Team and the Territory CEOs as builders and problem solvers. We are not simply operating an existing business—we are building the business as we go. That means identifying problems, developing solutions, and continuously improving the way we operate.
There will inevitably be challenges involving procurement, transportation, supplier relationships, logistics, and supply-chain development. Our job is to solve those problems and build systems that make the entire network more secure, reliable, and efficient.
Ultimately, we create value for both our sellers and our buyers by building a secure, trusted network and operating framework around the gold itself. Gold is the product, but the real value we provide is the infrastructure, relationships, trust, and execution that allow the product to move safely and consistently from seller to buyer.
What We Export to the World
The four things we ultimately want to export to the world are:
Trust
Consistency
Excellence
Patience
These are values that people admire, respect, and want to do business with.
Gold is simply the product through which we deliver those values to people.
