Senior Partnership Manager - AZA

AZA is an established provider of currency trading and cross-border payment solutions which accelerate global access to frontier markets through an innovative infrastructure. By leveraging cutting edge technology in our flagship products, TransferZero and BFX, AZA is able to significantly lower the cost and increase the speed of business payments to, from and across frontier markets. TransferZero is our B2B2C product, which provides both wholesale currency purchase and retail settlement via our robust API while BFX is our B2B over-the-counter platform for businesses with wholesale currency needs, especially those paying partners and suppliers.

Our partners utilise our hybrid financial infrastructure and deep local knowledge to manage liquidity and send payments to dozens of bank networks, mobile money operators and payments aggregators across Africa. Licensed by the UK’s FCA and the Bank of Spain, AZA is a market-maker in every major African currency. AZA was founded in 2013 and now has offices in Nairobi, Lagos, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Kampala and Dakar.

AZA is currently seeking a talented and driven candidate with experience supporting a global company. This role provides invaluable experience in an exciting and rapidly expanding market and an opportunity to be part of a truly global and diverse company. As the Senior Partnership Manager, your mission is to leverage your existing network of key decision makers in financial institutions, Telco’s and aggregators/gateways and regulators in key Africa regions to ensure

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AZA offers the most sustainable and competitive financial service and solution. The post holder will help in setting up our operations in new corridors across Africa, and therefore would have a good professional and commercial network to be successful in this role.

This role is open to candidates in Nairobi – Kenya, Accra – Ghana and Dakar – Senegal, but it is imperative that the post holder have a high level of written and verbal fluency in both English and French language.

How your skills and passion will come to life at the Company:

• Building new relationships with local financial institutions, Telco’s, aggregator, payment gateways and regulatory authorities
• Leveraging your existing relationship C-level decision makers in financial institutions such as local banks, payment processors and fintech companies to partner with AZA.
• Convincing banks/non-bank partners to extend regulatory coverage for AZA.
• Proactively seek and engage closely with potential key leaders of financial institutions for the purpose of user acquisition, expansion and the uptake of AZA’s products.
• Negotiating commercial contracts, complete account opening forms, educating potential partners about our compliance and due processes, and other ad-hoc tasks to close partnership deals.
• Directing and participating in initiatives that identify opportunities with new clients.
• Leading commercial and relationship discussions with partners and monitor our economics on global routes to ensure we offer the most sustainable and competitive service in the market.
• Creating new opportunities within existing relationships with partners to ensure we continuously improve our product (i.e. increase speed, reduce costs, add more visibility to our transactions, etc.).
• To work across other teams, focusing on our product and regulation in the market:
• Working closely with partners / AZA product teams to bring market insights and recommendations to build better products and experiences for our customers.
• Supporting our compliance team in managing our relationships with regulators and other important non-commercial relationships, such as the government.
• Understanding existing and new regulations and figure out the best ways our product can comply with them. We see regulation as an opportunity!

Requirements

• You possess strong emotional intelligence (self-management, self-awareness, empathy), listening/communication/influencing skills (able to explain the same concept in every way possible to ensure your audience can understand and take actions towards an aligned business objective) and collaborative spirits with multi-disciplinary teams of diverse cultural backgrounds.
• You are a dynamic negotiator knowing when to use what negotiation style/tactics (you can get the best deals in any situations); able to independently negotiate the most ideal terms (pricing, service level agreement etc.) with a clear product and revenue vision and understanding in mind and you can figure out the ideal operational and commercial process with every new partner.
• You are excellent at managing relationships and are constantly creating opportunities to improve them.
• Building strong relationships with C-suites independently and helping partners align the business objectives from every level in order to achieve AZA goals.
• An understanding of how local and international payments work (specific knowledge of local payment systems would be a plus) and how AZA can build our product around these.

What we are looking for:

• You have 10+ years working experience as a B2B sales professional and have at least 5 years’ experience in originating, negotiating and closing contracts with financial institutions in EMEA regions
• You already have an existing robust network of key decision makers operating at C- level within the regulatory authorities, central banks and local banks across Africa.
• You possess a bachelor’s degree in Business Management or Business Administration or Marketing from a reputable university
• Proven work experience in scouting, nurturing and closing commercial relationships with banks and other financial institutions.
• Prior experience in wholesale FX transactions

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• You have a passion for our mission, products and transforming the financial industry in frontier markets for good.
• You are excited about working independently, flexibly and take the initiative in a fast- moving environment.
• A familiarity with how corporate banks and financial institutions work (especially non- bank FI/wholesale banking, transactional banking and cash management area) and their decision makers as well as decision making process would be a plus for this role.
• Having experience with building business relationships with financial institutions, dealing with their risk and compliance teams, payment processors and Telco’s.
• An overall understanding of payment and FX regulation in a changing environment and an interest in AML/KYC and risk controls.
• You should have experience engaging the local regulators.

Benefits

• A competitive salary and benefits package.
• Global / regional network / exposure in FinTech / Blockchain industry.
• One of the hottest, fastest scaling start-ups in Africa.
• Casual work environment.
• Great work-life balance.
• We value autonomy.
• Opportunity for growth for all employees.
• Opportunity to work hard and play hard.

AZA is an equal opportunity employer and will consider every qualified applicant for employment. AZA does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability.