Head of Operations

Our mission

We're making Africa the first cashless continent.

In 2017, over half the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had no bank account. That's for good reason-the fees are too high, the closest branch can be miles away, and nobody takes cards. Without access to financial institutions, people are forced to keep their savings under the mattress. Small business owners rely on lenders who charge extortionate rates. Parents spend hours waiting in line to pay school fees in cash.

We're solving this by building financial services that just work: no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don't always work, you can still send money with Wave. In 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. Now, we have millions of users across 9 countries and are growing fast.

Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent and that's where you come in...

How you'll help us achieve it

We're looking for a Head of Operations who’ll oversee our operations in Senegal as we focus on achieving operational excellence there. We need a leader who can oversee our core operations, including agent ops, agent liquidity, cash security, agent quality, and training, besides being innovative at the implementation of agent network projects aimed at building a high-quality agent network with lower operating costs.

You will directly report to Wave’s SN General Manager and indirectly to the Head of Scaling Ops.

In this role, you'll:

• Oversee daily business operations in Senegal, working from first principles to understand the problems blocking the business' growth and taking ownership of resolving those problems.
• Work closely with Wave's Executive Team to determine key objectives and operationalize strategies.
• Provide direct management of key functional managers within the business.
• Own key projects for Wave Senegal, including developing the strategy and executing what is needed to achieve them.
• Lead by living Wave's values and ensuring they're deeply ingrained within the team.
• Be an advocate for your team within the company more broadly.
• Work with our People Team to identify and hire local talent.
• Help to develop Wave's global strategy by sharing insights and learnings from Senegal.

Key details

• Location: You'll work from our office in Senegal, occasionally traveling to field locations.
• This is a permanent position.
• Our salaries are competitive and calculated using a transparent formula. 
• We offer generous health insurance for yourself and your dependents. 
• We support working parents -  we offer 26 weeks parental leave for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers, in addition to subsidized child care when they return to work.
• Airtime reimbursement.
• Free food and a beautiful office space.

Requirements

• Have 10+ years of experience either in mobile money, finance, fintech, telecoms, or technology sectors as a senior leader or executive managing cross-functional teams.
• Hold a bachelor's degree or higher in business administration.
• Have 8+ years of experience building and leading strong teams in achieving results.
• Possess a track record in managing stakeholders through strategic reporting for external partners.
• Strong track record in building country-level and multi-country partnerships in Africa.
• Work authorization in Senegal.
• Fluency in English and, ideally, in a local language.  

You might be a good fit if you

• Demonstrate very strong communication and stakeholder management skills, communicating effectively and often, both in writing and in person, to the point of over-communication.
• Can adjust quickly to changing priorities and conditions and cope effectively with complexity and change.
• Are deeply passionate about our mission of bringing financial services to the people who need them the most.
• Are intellectually curious, creative in the way you go about tackling problems, and embrace failure as a means to spark innovation and growth.
• Possess a bias toward action and testing and are analytical in your approach.
• Demonstrate tenacity and a willingness to go the distance to get something done.
• Enjoy owning projects - you're autonomous yet know when to escalate problems.

Our team

• We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Uganda, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon plus remote team members spread across the world.
• We're deeply passionate about our mission of bringing radically affordable financial services to the people who need them most.
• We foster autonomy for our employees. You'll own your projects at every stage, from understanding the problem to monitoring your solution in production.
• We raised the largest Series A in Africa in 2021. Our world-class investors, include Founders Fund, Sequoia Heritage, Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and Partech Africa.
• We are on  Y Combinator's top companies by revenue.

How to apply

Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English and a cover letter describing your interest in Wave and the role.

We review applications frequently and recommend that you apply to the role that most closely aligns with your skills, experience and career goals.

Wave is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.