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 9 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

Wave is now the largest financial institution in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, with millions of users, growing rapidly year on year. And, we’re still in the early days of our product roadmap and potential impact on people’s everyday lives.

We’re hiring a Regional Lead to join our team in Malawi. Reporting to the Country Launcher, the role holder will oversee all Wave agent network acquisition and user growth operations for the assigned region, supervising Field Officers’ activities and liaising with the respective agent admin teams to achieve the set targets in the region.

In this role, you’ll;

Agent growth: Coordinate the Field Officers in identifying opportunity areas for new agent locations and acquiring required agents according to the set agent selection criteria and guidelines.

Agent Contracting: Ensure the Field Officers recruit agents in compliance with the legal and policy requirements as per the defined procedure. Ensure all agents in your region have executed valid contracts and are trained on the contents of the contract before they sign it.

Agent Activation & Training: Ensure all agents are trained and certified (for all products and procedures). This includes Know Your Customer (KYC) and AML/CTF as per the defined agent training procedure and requirements. It also includes delivering supplies and coordinating outlet branding.

Agent Ongoing Liquidity Management: Coordinate the cash / e-value availability monitoring at agents in liaison with Liquidity and Agent Quality Territory teams.

Risk Management and Routine Visitation: Manage the teams in Monitoring Agent vs. target performance through Reports on emerging issues and assessments of the region’s performance.

Agent Churn: Coordinate the Identification of Agents for Closure (as per internal procedure), recover Wave items and equipment, and ensure branding material is removed.

Distribution Management: Manage a team of Field Officers who, in turn, manage field-based promoters, whose role is to recruit new users to our financial products

Growth Strategy: Identify and find solutions to critical blockers for user growth and develop strategies to boost the retention of newly acquired users

Distribution Training and Monitoring: Hire, train, manage, and monitor distribution team members and utilise data to make decisions on distribution strategies

Be the primary contact person for all agency networks and new users in your region: Execute operational excellence, manage costs, and ensure compliance with internal policies and regulatory guidelines.

Champion excellent customer service and implementation of quality service delivery standards.

Key Details

Location: This is a field based role in the assigned region within Malawi

Work authorization in Malawi is required.

This is a permanent position.

Our salaries are competitive and calculated using a transparent formula.

We offer generous health insurance for yourself and your dependents.

We support working parents – we offer 26 weeks of parental leave for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers, in addition to subsidized child care when they return to work.

Airtime reimbursement.

Lunch and field facilitation are provided.

Requirements

• Fluency in English and a local language.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• At least 5 years of relevant work experience, specifically managing an agent network and/or user acquisition in Malawi, and a minimum of 2 years of experience managing field-based teams.
• Must have worked and overseen agent network activities in the upcountry.
• Prior launch experience is desirable.

You might be a good fit if you

• Have planned and successfully managed customer acquisition strategies for mobile/financial products before.
• Communicate effectively and often, both in writing and in-person, to the point of overcommunication.
• Are detail-oriented and seek to achieve excellence in everything you do.
• Are a self-starter and proactive about achieving ambitious targets.
• Enjoy owning projects – you’re autonomous yet know when to escalate problems.
• Willing to go the distance to get something done.
• Adjust quickly to changing priorities and conditions.
• Are tech-savvy: comfortable navigating excel and onboarding to new tools.
• Have a great teamwork spirit.

• Coordinate the Field Officers in identifying opportunity areas for new agent locations and acquiring required agents according to the set agent selection criteria and guidelines.
• Ensure the Field Officers recruit agents in compliance with the legal and policy requirements as per the defined procedure. Ensure all agents in your region have executed valid contracts and are trained on the contents of the contract before they sign it.
• Ensure all agents are trained and certified (for all products and procedures). This includes Know Your Customer (KYC) and AML/CTF as per the defined agent training procedure and requirements. It also includes delivering supplies and coordinating outlet branding.
• Coordinate the cash / e-value availability monitoring at agents in liaison with Liquidity and Agent Quality Territory teams.
• Manage the teams in Monitoring Agent vs. target performance through Reports on emerging issues and assessments of the region’s performance.
• Coordinate the Identification of Agents for Closure (as per internal procedure), recover Wave items and equipment, and ensure branding material is removed.
• Manage a team of Field Officers who, in turn, manage field-based promoters, whose role is to recruit new users to our financial products
• Identify and find solutions to critical blockers for user growth and develop strategies to boost the retention of newly acquired users
• Hire, train, manage, and monitor distribution team members and utilise data to make decisions on distribution strategies
• Execute operational excellence, manage costs, and ensure compliance with internal policies and regulatory guidelines.
• Champion excellent customer service and implementation of quality service delivery standards.

• Fluency in English and a local language.
• Managing an agent network and/or user acquisition in Malawi.
• Managing field-based teams.
• Planned and successfully managed customer acquisition strategies for mobile/financial products.
• Effective communication (written and in-person).
• Detail-oriented.
• Proactive about achieving ambitious targets.
• Ability to own projects and escalate problems when necessary.
• Adaptability to changing priorities.
• Tech-savvy (Excel, new tools).
• Teamwork spirit.

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• At least 5 years of relevant work experience, specifically managing an agent network and/or user acquisition in Malawi.
• A minimum of 2 years of experience managing field-based teams.
• Must have worked and overseen agent network activities in the upcountry.
• Prior launch experience is desirable.