Senior Regional Sales Manager – Inflight Entertainment & Avionics

About the role

The Senior Regional Sales Manager is a senior sales professional within Thales Aviation Global Services (AGS) for the Middle East, Africa & Turkey region. The role leads the most complex, high‑value captures (typically > €50M) from early positioning through negotiation and contract signature, requiring engagement with C‑level airline customers and strong influencing of internal stakeholders across multiple time zones.

Key responsibilities

• Lead capture strategy and execution on complex opportunities > €50M, from qualification to contract closure.
• Engage and build trust with customer stakeholders up to C‑level, tailoring value propositions to their strategic priorities.
• Organise and lead cross‑functional bid teams, coordinating central functions (programs, engineering, finance, legal, contracts) across different time zones.
• Collaborate with the IFE Business Line and wider Thales organization to ensure consistent positioning and coordinated customer engagement.
• Identify and develop new business opportunities for adjacent digital services such as Flight Optim, Electronic Flight Bag solutions and cybersecurity.
• Maintain rigorous pipeline, forecast and CRM discipline for assigned captures.

Required profile

• Engineering or Business degree (Bachelor’s or Master’s).
• Minimum 10 years of sales/commercial experience in the aviation sector, specifically Avionics and/or In‑Flight Entertainment.
• Proven track record of leading and closing high‑value captures (> €50M) across the region.
• Demonstrated ability to autonomously run bids and lead virtual, cross‑functional teams.
• Strong experience negotiating with C‑level contacts and excellent influencing skills.
• Fluent in English and Arabic; French is a plus.

Required skills

• Avionics
• In‑Flight Entertainment (IFE)
• Digital services
• CRM
• Negotiation