Business Development Manager - The Gambia

Banjul , The Gambia

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

We are seeking motivated individuals who are excited about taking on challenges and are passionate about Wave's mission. We are looking for dynamic, out-of-the-box thinkers who are ready to go the extra mile to help us achieve our goal of making The Gambia cashless!

The business development team is pivotal in cultivating relationships, establishing partnerships, and executing contracts that align with the needs of our product and operations teams


In this role, you'll focus on three key types of partners;

  • Bank partners: Collaborating on e-money partnerships and product integration.
  • Telecom partners: Addressing all engineering and product requirements.
  • Business partners: Engaging users of Wave's bulk-payment and merchant services.


Key responsibilities include:

  • Building strong relationships to facilitate Wave's growth and operational effectiveness in The Gambia.
  • Sourcing and establishing business partnerships for Wave's payment products.
  • Forming, negotiating, and managing strategic partnerships essential for Wave's business operations.
  • Identifying and engaging with the appropriate contacts at partner organisations to meet Wave's needs.
  • Overseeing communication between partners and Wave teams, including Product, Finance, Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Marketing.

Key details

  • Location: The position is primarily based in Banjul, with the possibility of short-term relocations within The Gambia.
  • Work authorization in The Gambia is required.
  • Our salaries are competitive and calculated using a transparent formula. We run performance reviews twice a year and award bonuses to strong performers who have been with the company for more than 6 months
  • We pay 100% of your health care insurance premium cost for yourself and your dependents
  • We support working parents - we offer generous parental leave policies (26 weeks for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers) and subsidised childcare when you return to work
  • Fitness Benefit

You might be a good fit if you

  • Possess a robust network of friends and former colleagues in mobile money, banking, telecommunications, insurance, or relevant B2B sales sectors, and are eager for opportunities to connect, collaborate, and build professional relationships.
  • Strong local network across the public and private sector  
  • Feel equally comfortable presenting in a boardroom and preparing partner onboarding documents in both French and English.
  • Are passionate about Wave’s mission and motivated to do whatever it takes to achieve it.
  • 4+ years leading a team at a rapidly scaling organization
  • Demonstrable competency in strategic planning and business development
  • Demonstrate very strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
  • Experience working with the Bank of Sierra Leone is an added advantage.
  • A background in leading operations launches in a Fintech, startup or mobile money operations is an added advantage.

 

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.
  • 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.

Our mission Since 2014, our Sendwave app has allowed Africans in the US, the UK, and Canada to send money instantly to mobile money wallets in Kenya, Uganda, & Tanzania, saving our users over 70% relative to Western Union and MoneyGram. In 2016, we expanded our scope and began building Wave, a mobile money product for domestic markets in Africa.  The problem: Nearly 60% of adults 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 most merchants only accept cash. 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.How we're solving it: We're building financial services to work as they should: no account fees, instantly available and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don't always function, we're creating financial infrastructure that "just works." At the end of 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments; in 2019, wwe launched in Cote d'Ivoire. Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent. That's where you come in... Who are we? We're a distributed HQ team of ~60 people who are deeply passionate about our mission of bringing great financial services to the people who need them most. We have a Country Office in Senegal with about 70 people and have recently opened another Country Office in Cote d’Ivoire. We’re backed by world-class investors including Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, Y Combinator, and the cofounders of PayPal. Our values We’re egolessly mission driven We focus ruthlessly on the most important thing We’re embarrassingly honest to stay aligned and move quickly We don’t wait – we live our fullest lives now We maximize our rate of learning We're growing quickly, see our job openings below. If you are interested in roles with our international remittance team (SendWave), see here. 

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