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 six 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
Wave is now the largest financial institution in Senegal, with over 7 million users. And, we’re still in the early days of our product roadmap and potential impact on people’s everyday lives.
Increasing and retaining the number of end-users is a key factor for our business. Therefore, we are looking for a User Growth Regional Lead. You'll supervise distribution activities. You will be responsible for increasing and retaining users in your assigned region. To achieve this, you will suggest strategies to increase and retain the number of users using their Wave account to transfer money and pay their bills. You'll report to the Head of BTL and Distribution.
In this role you’ll;
- Manage a team of supervisors/team lead who in turn manage field-based distributors, whose role is to recruit new users to our financial products.
- Identify and find solutions to critical blockers for user growth and maintain active usage of our financial products in assigned areas.
- Develop strategies to boost the retention of newly acquired users.
- Hire, train and manage distribution team members and build systems to scale distribution as needed rapidly.
- Build the roadmap for the distribution team in your area to achieve its quarterly key objectives, including iterating on strategy and growing our customer base day after day within an assigned region Burkina Faso.
- Use data to make decisions on distribution strategies and monitor the performance of your team.
- Work closely with the agency team to align key objectives and operationalize strategies.
- Help to develop Wave’s distribution strategy by sharing insights and learning from the team’s experience.
- Lead by living Wave's values, and ensure they're deeply ingrained within your team.
Key Details
- Location: Burkina Faso, or other regions. Willingness to relocate to other regions for 2-3 month periods is required.
- Work authorization in Burkina Faso required.
- Our salaries are competitive and calculated using a transparent formula.
- We run Performance Reviews twice a year and give bonuses or promotions to exceptional performers who have been at the company for more than 6 months.
- We offer generous health insurance for yourself and your dependents.
- We support working parents - we offer 26 weeks of 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
- Fluent in French and in local language (Moore and/or Dioula).
- Proficient in English - this role will interact regularly with non-French speakers, and reporting will be done primarily in English.
- Previous experience in sales/business development/team management.
- At least 4 years of relevant work experience specifically managing field teams or user acquisition teams based in the field.
- At least 2 year’s experience designing strategies for user acquisition for a telecom, payment service provider, FMCG, or financial institution.
- At least 2 year’s experience managing large teams (50+ people).
You might be a good fit if you:
- Have planned and successfully managed customer acquisition strategies for mobile/financial or FMCG products before.
- Communicate effectively and often, both in writing and in-person, to the point of overcommunication.
- Are detail-oriented and seek to achieve excellence in everything you do.
- Are a self-starter and proactive about achieving ambitious targets.
- Enjoy owning projects - you're autonomous yet know when to escalate problems.
- Willing to go the distance to get something done.
- Adjust quickly to changing priorities and conditions.
- Are tech-savvy: comfortable navigating excel and onboarding to new tools.
- Have teamwork spirit.
Our team
- We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, and Uganda, 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.
- In 2023, we were on Y Combinator's top 50 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.