Head of Product, Merchant Solutions (SMME)

M-Pesa Africa is the largest FinTech providing services to more than 60 million customers and 5 million businesses solutions across Financial Services, Enterprise, Merchant and Retail. With headquarters in both Nairobi and Johannesburg, it serves markets including Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. Safaricom PLC is a leading telecommunications company in Kenya.

M-Pesa Africa, a leading FinTech serving over 60 million customers and 5 million businesses, aims to become the preferred digital payment method across its markets. This senior, hands-on role involves taking full ownership of the merchant product portfolio, transforming existing disparate products—from payment acceptance to business apps, tools, and credit—into a cohesive merchant proposition. The role begins in Kenya, the largest merchant base, with the strategic goal of designing solutions that can be reused across all M-Pesa markets. The successful candidate will be responsible for setting strategy, owning the product roadmap, and actively engaging with data, merchants, engineering teams, and vendor partners to drive commercial outcomes.

1. Define the merchant product vision, segmentation, and multi-year roadmap, ensuring alignment with clear commercial objectives such as active merchants, usage, revenue, and credit attachment.
2. Manage the entire merchant product stack, encompassing acceptance solutions (till, Buy Goods, Paybill, QR), merchant applications and portals, notifications, reconciliation processes, business tools, and value-added services.
3. Prioritize the activation and utilization of existing products before developing new ones, conducting structured experiments on onboarding, configuration, and engagement to achieve measurable improvements.
4. Collaborate with financial services teams to design effective merchant working capital and credit journeys that leverage transaction data and address funnel inefficiencies.
5. Drive the implementation of a unified merchant identity and a common data model across all products, providing merchants with a single view of their business and enabling reusability across markets.
6. Establish a robust evidence base by defining core merchant metrics and denominators, instrumenting user journeys, and making roadmap decisions informed by data and merchant research.
7. Lead product-related input into vendor selection and contract negotiations, with a specific focus on data rights, intellectual property, and the potential for cross-market reuse.
8. Build and lead a high-performing product team, establishing and maintaining a clear product operating rhythm for discovery, product requirements documents (PRDs), releases, and post-launch reviews.

1. Possess over 10 years of experience in product management, including at least 4 years in a leadership role overseeing product teams or a product portfolio.
2. Demonstrate deep expertise in mobile money, payments, or fintech within Africa, particularly with merchant, SME, or agent products at scale.
3. Have a proven track record of successfully launching and expanding products in Kenya or comparable East African markets, with documented commercial achievements.
4. Exhibit a strong understanding of merchant payments economics, including acceptance mechanisms, pricing strategies, settlement processes, reconciliation, and the merchant lifecycle.
5. Be data-fluent, comfortable with defining metrics, collaborating with analysts, interpreting SQL outputs, and designing effective experiments.
6. Possess experience working effectively across complex stakeholder environments, including operators, group functions, regulators, and partners, and demonstrating the ability to influence without direct authority.
7. Show excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present effectively to senior executives.
8. Hold a Bachelor’s degree in business, economics, engineering, computer science, or a related field.
9. (Desirable) Experience with multi-market product development across several African countries.
10. (Desirable) Exposure to SME lending, working capital solutions, or data-driven credit products.
11. (Desirable) Experience in managing third-party technology vendors and commercial contracts.
12. (Desirable) Knowledge of Central Bank of Kenya regulations and regional payments and data protection laws.
13. (Desirable) An MBA or other relevant postgraduate qualification.