Position Summary
Responsible for the overall Acceptance, Gateway 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 & Gateway 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 & Gateway 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 & gateway 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& gateway 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
Corporate Security Responsibility
All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:
Abide by Mastercard's security policies and practices;
Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;
Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and
Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard's guidelines.