Position Summary

• Responsible for the overall Acceptance and Merchant Product & Solutions strategy in East and West Africa and its implementation as well as the growth and development of meaningful and profitable merchant, acquirer and payment intermediary relations.
• In addition, this role is responsible for working with the Country Management team on industry & regulatory initiatives and interchange management for the East and West African market. This role is recognized as the authority on the acceptance of digital payments, industry and regulatory areas in the market.
• Oversees the development and implementation of acceptance and merchant strategies that grow the penetration of electronic payments in East and West Africa to drive the increase of Merchant Sales Volume (MSV) via implementing and managing initiatives and projects that will grow revenue. The person taking this role should be able to understand and communicate local market needs to the Country team and the Regional and Global Acceptance organizations so that they are able to effectively and efficiently define market-specific strategies required to manage complex acceptance issues.

Responsibilities

• The person occupying this position will play a critical role at the East and West Africa leadership team, influencing fellow peers in providing leadership and strategic guidance to ensure all necessary tools, processes, procedures and staff are in place to successfully support Mastercard initiatives, while establishing and fostering relationships with merchants, regulatory bodies and other stakeholders
• Develop and execute the Acceptance strategy for East and West Africa, to increase personal consumption expenditure (PCE) penetration, merchant volume, market share, data processing revenues and create acquirer, merchant and consumer preference for Mastercard.
• Management of interchange strategy with key internal stakeholders
• In conjunction with the country management teams, represent Mastercard on industry bodies and forums
• Development of merchant acquiring strategy and business plans for East and West Africa
• Development of new initiatives/solutions, implementation of marketing/usage initiatives targeting traditional and new merchant segments, both in physical world and virtual world.
• Provide leadership, strategic direction and management to the direct report, establishing a customer focused, performance based culture
• Direct in-market Acceptance resources to assure that all goals are supported in a cost effective, timely manner, with a resulting high level of client satisfaction
• Successfully translate broad strategies into specific objectives and action plans, aligning efforts of the Acceptance and Interchange organizations with other key stakeholders
• Ensure the Acceptance team provides the necessary leadership and support to local Clients/country and to internal stakeholder organizations including Sales, Product, Corporate Relations, Risk, Marketing and Legal
• Establish and foster relationships with Clients and internal stakeholders at all levels of staff and senior management
• Support local Client Sales Teams with their sales efforts. Maintain current knowledge of technologies, products, services, methods and applications and implement new approaches and practices as required

Qualifications

Professional

• Local market and regulatory knowledge and functional experience in acceptance, merchant acquiring, interchange management, consulting, financial transaction processing knowledge and client sales, supporting highly complex clients and/or services
• Experience managing a team of sales and specialist professionals
• A minimum of 10 years of success in progressive leadership positions in the Payments industry
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• Graduate degree/MBA preferred

Technical

• Working knowledge of Mastercard systems
• Working knowledge of payments network and processing services
• Demonstrated, detailed knowledge of the full breadth of acceptance and other products and services offered by Mastercard
• Microsoft office tools e.g. PowerPoint, Excel, Word etc
• Business
• Broad and multiple industry exposure.
• General Finance and Accounting
• Strong Influencing and Negotiation skills
• Sales and Relationship management skills
• Project management
• Strong oral and written communications skills
• Business analytical analysis
• Experience shaping and delivering defined strategies
• Proven track record of leading and driving teams to achieve and exceed established goals and objectives
• Executive presence