Dealer Principal; Trucks

Dealer Principal (Trucks) job vacancy in Pretoria.

Our heavy Truck dealership in Pretoria currently holds a vacancy for a Dealer Principal reporting to the Commercial Division Franchise Executive.

This role requires a decisive and commercially astute leader with strong operational understanding of the heavy-duty truck market, aftersales performance drivers, and fleet customer expectations.

The ideal candidate is passionate about building people, delivering growth, and driving excellence across all dealership functions.

Main purpose:

To develop and execute tactical strategies that ensure sustainable profitability, operational excellence, and market share growth within a commercial trucks dealership environment, while maintaining alignment with Distributor and OEM brand standards.

Specific

Role Responsibilities:

Strategic & Financial Leadership:

• Develop and implement dealership strategies to drive new trucks, used trucks, service, and parts revenue, ensuring growth in all commercial segments.
• Deliver and exceed financial performance targets across whole goods, aftersales, absorption rate, and cashflow management.
• Conduct continuous market intelligence to understand fleet trends, competitor activity, TCO expectations, and customer operational requirements.

Operational Management:

• Optimally manage daily operations across Sales, Service, Parts, Admin, and Used Trucks, ensuring cross functional integration and efficiency.
• Ensure dealership processes comply with all regulatory requirements, company’s governance frameworks, and OEM operational standards.
• Oversee management of dealership assets including stock, debtor control, creditor management, cashflow, workshop productivity, parts obsolescence, and used-truck retail readiness.

People Leadership:

• Provide strong leadership to all department managers, acting as an effective “manager of managers”.
• Build and retain high-calibre teams with the right technical, sales, and customer-experience capabilities suited for commercial vehicle operations.
• Drive a culture of accountability, performance, and high morale across all departments.

Customer & Market Focus:

• Champion customer acquisition and retention, particularly across fleet operators, logistics companies, small-business owners, and vocational customers.
• Oversee customer experience throughout the vehicle sales, service, breakdown support, and warranty process, ensuring quick turnaround times and strong CSI.
• Promote the brand and dealership professionally within the commercial trucking sector.

Performance Monitoring & Growth Execution:

• Monitor dealer KPIs including sales funnel health, workshop efficiency, recovery rates, parts turnover, warranty performance, absorption, and used-truck stock days.
• Identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency and profitability.
• Create and maintain a positive, engaged work climate aligned to company’s values.

Requirements:

Position Knowledge:

• Strong knowledge of commercial vehicle operations, including trucks, fleet management, uptime requirements, and aftersales economics.
• Understanding of labour legislation, regulatory requirements, and industry compliance.
• Financial management expertise relevant to dealership operations.
• Solid grasp of sales & service processes, parts supply-chain dynamics, and commercial truck lifecycle management.
• Brand management knowledge within an OEM-aligned dealership environment.

Position-Related

Skills:

• Advanced customer-orientation and relationship-building skills, especially with fleet customers.
• Strong people-management and coaching skills.
• High-level financial acumen.
• Proficiency in dealership and OEM systems, reporting tools, and general computer literacy.

Position

Experience:

• 7+ years in the Commercial vehicle industry.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in used trucks sales management or operations.
• At least 3 years’ Dealer Principal or Senior Management experience in a commercial dealership.
• Broad exposure to sales, aftersales, service operations, and parts management.
• Strong marketing and business-development experience within the commercial vehicle sector.