General Manager, Middle East

About the Company

Wati is an AI-driven customer engagement platform that helps businesses sell, support, and grow through conversations. What began as a WhatsApp team inbox in 2020 has expanded into a multichannel solution that works across WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, SMS, and other channels. The platform combines a unified inbox, no-code automation, and AI capabilities such as AI Copilot, Astra AI Agent, and support for custom LLMs.

Today, the company serves more than 16,000 customers in 190+ countries and is supported by investors including Tiger Global, PeakXV, DST Global, and Shopify. It is also recognised as a Premium Partner of Meta and Google.

Role Overview

Wati is hiring an entrepreneurial General Manager for the Middle East to drive the next stage of regional growth. This is a market-building role focused on commercial leadership, local market insight, customer-facing execution, partner ecosystem development, and disciplined operations.

The role will be responsible for strengthening Wati’s presence in the Middle East, accelerating revenue, deepening local customer and partner relationships, and shaping the go-to-market approach for the region. It is best suited to someone who is hands-on, commercially strong, and comfortable moving between strategy and execution in an ambiguous environment.

What You Will Do

• Lead the Middle East growth strategy across target countries, customer segments, and priority verticals.
• Define the most promising ideal customer profiles, use cases, and market-entry opportunities.
• Generate traction through direct selling, partnerships, customer relationships, and ecosystem development.
• Convert market insight into actionable input for GTM, Product, Partnerships, and Customer Success.
• Own regional outcomes for new business, expansion, and strategic accounts.
• Work closely with Account Executives, Customer Success, and the Partner Manager to improve pipeline, conversion, adoption, and retention.
• Focus the team on the right opportunities and customer segments.
• Support customer discussions, product demos, commercial negotiations, and executive-level conversations when required.
• Develop relationships with agencies, technology partners, WhatsApp/Meta ecosystem players, digital transformation firms, and local business communities.
• Identify partnership routes that can create stronger customer opportunities and higher-value revenue.
• Partner with internal teams to improve enablement, co-selling, and co-marketing execution.
• Decide where partnerships can add real value and where direct GTM is the better path.
• Adapt Wati’s market approach to Middle East customer expectations, buying patterns, language requirements, and business norms.
• Help position WhatsApp automation, AI agents, customer engagement, and conversational commerce for the regional market.
• Assess where Arabic support, local presence, or market-specific enablement is needed.
• Work with Product, PMM, and CSM to improve education, onboarding, and adoption for local customers.
• Coordinate execution across Sales, CSM, Partnerships, SE, AM, Implementation, Product, PMM, and RevOps.
• Ensure ownership is clear across the regional pod and shared resources.
• Build a regular operating rhythm around pipeline, feedback, onboarding, adoption, revenue risk, and market learnings.
• Escalate structured feedback to leadership on progress, blockers, and required changes.

Requirements

• At least 8 years of experience in commercial leadership, go-to-market, sales, partnerships, country management, regional management, or business development.
• Strong exposure to the Middle East market, ideally including UAE, KSA, and the wider GCC.
• Background in selling or scaling SaaS, MarTech, CPaaS, customer engagement, conversational commerce, AI, automation, CRM, support technology, or similar B2B products.
• Proven track record of building revenue in a new or developing market.
• Confident in customer-facing situations, including executive meetings, demos, negotiations, and relationship management.
• Experience working with partners, agencies, channel networks, or local market ecosystems.
• Strong discipline around pipeline management, forecasting, prioritisation, follow-up, and cross-functional coordination.
• Comfort working with high ownership in a fast-changing and uncertain environment.
• Arabic language ability is a plus, or experience managing Arabic-speaking markets.
• Experience with WhatsApp Business API, Meta ecosystem, messaging products, CPaaS, customer engagement platforms, or AI agents is advantageous.
• Experience launching or scaling a market from scratch, or leading early-stage regional expansion, is a plus.
• Exposure to SMB or mid-market SaaS motions, including sales-assisted, partner-led, and self-serve models, is desirable.
• Experience operating in a lean regional pod with shared central resources is a plus.
• A strong existing network across Middle East SaaS, agencies, digital transformation, Meta/WhatsApp ecosystem, e-commerce, or customer engagement communities is beneficial.

What Success Looks Like

In the first 3 to 6 months, success is expected to look like a clear Middle East GTM plan covering priority countries, ICPs, verticals, and channels; stronger pipeline generation; a well-defined partner and ecosystem map; a tighter feedback loop into Product, PMM, CSM, and RevOps; a healthier operating cadence across the regional team; and practical recommendations on what Wati needs to scale in the Middle East, including local capabilities, Arabic support, onboarding, enablement, partnerships, and product improvements.

Why Join Wati

• Take ownership of a strategically important growth market at a pivotal point in the region’s expansion.
• Work with leadership to shape the regional GTM model from the ground up.
• Help customers adopt AI-powered engagement, AI agents, and automation across sales and support workflows.
• Join a business that combines startup-like speed with global scale and strong investor backing.
• Receive competitive pay with meaningful equity upside.

Additional Information

This position is based in the United Arab Emirates and is structured as a full-time onsite role. The role is intended for someone who can operate independently, take strong ownership, and lead regional growth with a high degree of accountability.