Role Summary:

As Principal: Payment Method Operations & Performance – Africa, you will drive operational excellence for our payment method ecosystem across all African markets. You will be accountable for SLA adherence, settlement and float reliability, incident response, and partner operational health in close collaboration with Country Managers, Treasury, Product, and Compliance teams. This is a high-impact role requiring ownership, resilience, and the ability to navigate complexity across markets, partners, and platforms.

Key Responsibilities:

Operational Performance & Uptime

• Monitor and manage end-to-end operational health for active payment methods (mobile money, bank rails, wallets).
• Track real-time performance dashboards; intervene proactively when SLAs are at risk.
• Own operational SLAs related to settlement, reversals, refunds, and method availability.

Float Management & Settlement Execution

• Oversee float utilization and thresholds across markets; ensure liquidity continuity.
• Coordinate with Treasury and Finance to execute settlements and resolve payment exceptions.
• Lead root cause analysis for settlement delays or float breaches.

Partner Engagement (with Country Managers)

• Support Country Managers with partner onboarding, performance reviews, and escalations.
• Track operational issues raised by partners and drive internal resolution loops.
• Align in-country partner operations with global standards.

Incident & Risk Management

• Lead incident triage and resolution coordination with Product and Engineering.
• Own SLA communication and war-room escalation for high-impact events.
• Conduct post-incident reviews and capture learnings into process enhancements.

Reporting & Analytics

• Own reporting for SLA adherence, float sufficiency, settlement completion, and refund aging.
• Partner with Data and Compliance to establish accurate, real-time operational intelligence.
• Define KPIs that reflect the health and reliability of each payment method.

Governance & Continuous Improvement

• Participate in Incident Review Boards, Quarterly Portfolio Reviews, and Product Ops forums.
• Maintain and evolve the African Markets Playbook in partnership with Country Managers.
• Flag systemic issues that require platform-level fixes or roadmap shifts.

Key Interfaces:

• Product & Engineering – for incident triage, testing, and feature rollouts
• Country Managers – for partner context, support, and ground-level issue resolution
• Treasury – for float planning, funding assurance, and settlement validation
• Compliance – for regulatory alignment and market-specific audit prep
• Customer Success – to track customer-impacting failures and resolution performance

Success Metrics:

• SLA Adherence (settlement, reversals, refunds)
• Float Sufficiency (days within target threshold)
• Settlement Completion Rate (% on-time)
• Incident MTTR (mean time to resolution)
• Partner Operational NPS (internal and external feedback)
• Regulatory & Audit Issues Rate