Google is looking for a new South African country director

Google is advertising the position of Country Director, South Africa on its careers portal.

Alistair Mokoena has been in the role since April 2020, when he was brought in to replace Luke McKend who had left the company in 2018 to head up LinkedIn for Africa.

McKend had been the country manager since October 2010.

Mokoena previously served as Ogilvy South Africa CEO and has a long history in the South African advertising sector.

He holds an LLB from Rhodes University, an MBA from MANCOSA, and a PhD from the North West University School of Business.

Mokoena and McKend’s other predecessors include Stephen Newton, who served briefly as Google South Africa’s country manager from June 2009 to 2010.

His predecessor was Stafford Masie, who was Regional General Manager from 2006 to 2009.

Google has listed four minimum qualifications in its advertisement for the post.

This includes experience in sales and commercial leadership, with a focus on digital and online experience.

Candidates must also have experience in sales coaching, mentoring, and team management.

Experience working with chief executives and building and sustaining a network among business, political decision-makers, NGO leaders, and regulatory bodies is also a must.

Applicants must also have previous Country Manager experience or have led a business unit across the region.

“This role offers the opportunity to lead Google’s business in South Africa and to help millions of users make the most of the web,” the company stated.

“Reporting to the Managing Director, Sub Saharan Africa, you are a member of the SSA Management Group and expected to contribute to the strategy and business development of the region.”

Google appointed Akex Okosi as managing director for Africa in September 2023 after the former Sub-Saharan Africa head, Nitin Gajria, was appointed to a new role.

Gajria moved to Singapore and now serves as Google’s managing director for publisher partnerships in the Asia Pacific region.

Google said its Country Director for South Africa will directly lead a highly skilled and ambitious commercial team based in Johannesburg.

“You are also the leader across various functional teams and represent all aspects of Google in South Africa,” it said.

“You are the official representative of Google in the region and drive how businesses, government and consumers view Google.”

Google said the person’s knowledge of online media and digital technologies combined with their communication skills and analytical abilities will shape how new and existing businesses grow.

“You leverage your entrepreneurial drive to educate and persuade existing and new customers to embrace Google’s latest advertising products and technologies,” it continued.

“You share the opportunities and challenges of the market, and voice the priorities for our products.”

The selected candidate must also set transparent objectives, and collaborate with their product and functional counterparts.

Google said candidates must be excellent communicators with a proven capacity to develop and motivate a large team.

In addition to leading Google’s sales and commercial teams in South Africa, the new Country Manager will take the reins at a time when the search giant is under heavy regulatory scrutiny.

The Competition Commission ruled in July 2023 that Google’s dominance and business model distorts platform competition in South Africa.

“Google Search is a de facto monopoly, accounting for over 90% of all general search across desktop, tablet and mobile devices,” the commission found.

“Given its importance for customer acquisition, visibility on the Google search is critical and impacts on discoverability and website traffic.”

It also noted that Google’s search result ranking matters as consumers are likelier to click on the first results if they are most relevant to the query.

Furthermore, Google Search has evolved to provide more prominence to paid results — and Google’s own properties — relative to organic results for commercial search.

“This is reflected in the large and growing spend on Google paid results by platforms,” the commission stated.

To address the distortion the commission found Google causes, it has imposed remedial actions to improve paid and organic result visibility for smaller South African platforms.

This includes providing R180 million in advertising credits for small platforms to use in customer acquisition, with free training to optimise advertising campaigns.

Google must also provide R150 million in training, product support and other measures for small and medium enterprises, and black-owned online firms.

The commission also ordered Google to introduce a South African flag identifier and South African platform search filter to help consumers identify and support local platforms.

In addition, Google must introduce a new element in its search results, like a carousel, which displays smaller South African platforms relevant to the search. This must be free and feature a content-rich display.

For example, Google must show local travel platforms in a travel search in a new rich-content carousel.

The commission also ordered that Google must stop self-preferencing its own products, like Google Shopping and Travel.

In addition to these findings, Google faces a separate Competition Commission inquiry involving media publishers.

This inquiry is investigating revenue-sharing arrangements between news media and digital platforms like Google, as well as its impact on the digital advertising market.