Job Description

M-Pesa Africa is the largest FinTech providing services to more than 60 million customers and 5 million businesses solutions across Financial Services, Enterprise, Merchant and Retail. We are now well on our way to becoming the preferred digital payment method across the markets that we serve, for both in-store, remote and online payments. With headquarters in both Nairobi and Johannesburg, we serve markets that include Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.

We are a united, energetic and passionate team. A place where leaders coach, teams connect, and everyone is empowered to go further, faster. A place where heroes become superheroes; through growth, opportunity, and the chance to work with the best minds in FinTech.

M-PESA already moves money for millions of merchants across our markets. What it does not yet do well is help them run their businesses: get paid reliably, see their numbers, access working capital, and grow. We are hiring a Head of Product to own the merchant product portfolio end to end, from the till and Pochi la Biashara to business apps, merchant tools and credit, and to turn a set of separately built products into one coherent merchant proposition.

You will start in Kenya, the largest and most mature merchant base in the footprint, and design what you build there so it can be reused across the other M-PESA markets. This is a senior, hands-on role: you will set strategy and own the roadmap, but you will also be in the data, in the field with merchants, and in the room with engineering and vendor partners.

• Strategy and roadmap: Define the merchant product vision, segmentation and multi-year roadmap across micro, small and medium merchants, tied to clear commercial outcomes (active merchants, usage, revenue, credit attach).
• Portfolio: Own the full merchant stack: acceptance (till, Buy Goods, Paybill, QR), merchant apps and portals, notifications, reconciliation, business tools and value-added services.
• Activation before build: Prioritise getting merchants to use what already exists before building new. Run structured experiments on onboarding, configuration and engagement, and hold the team to measurable movement.
• Working capital and credit: Partner with financial services to design merchant working-capital and credit journeys that use transaction data well, and fix where the funnel breaks.
• Identity and platform foundations: Drive a single merchant identity and a common data model across products, so every merchant has one view of their business, and every market can reuse what Kenya builds.
• Data and insight: Set the evidence base: define the core merchant metrics and denominators, instrument journeys, and make roadmap decisions from data and merchant research rather than opinion.
• Vendors and delivery: Lead product input into vendor selection and contracts, with particular attention to data rights, IP and reuse across markets. Manage delivery with internal engineering and external partners.
• Team and practice: Build and lead a high-performing product team; set the product operating rhythm (discovery, PRDs, release, post-launch review).

Essential

• 10+ years in product management, with at least 4 years leading product teams or a product portfolio.
• Deep experience in mobile money, payments or fintech in Africa, ideally with merchant, SME or agent products at scale.
• A track record of launching and growing products in Kenya or comparable East African markets, with measurable commercial results.
• Strong grasp of merchant payments economics: acceptance, pricing, settlement, reconciliation and merchant lifecycle.
• Data fluency: comfortable defining metrics, working with analysts and SQL outputs, and designing experiments.
• Experience working across complex stakeholder environments (operators, group functions, regulators, partners) and influencing without direct authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including presenting to senior executives.
• Bachelor's degree in business, economics, engineering, computer science or related field.

Desirable

• Multi-market product experience across several African countries.
• Exposure to SME lending, working capital or data-driven credit products.
• Experience managing third-party technology vendors and commercial contracts.
• Knowledge of Central Bank of Kenya and regional payments and data protection regulation.
• MBA or relevant postgraduate qualification.