Country Manager - Umba

Our mission at Umba is to use machine learning to allow us to create intelligent, affordable financial products for emerging markets.

Umba launched into the Kenyan market in November 2018 and offers a number of digital banking products to its users through an Android App.

This platform uses machine learning and big data to build credit scores to optimize risk exposures and allows users to apply for, receive, and repay microloans and through their smartphone.

Once a user creates an account we validate their information and make lending decisions based on their application and hundreds of data points they share with us.

Our machine learning models are in a state of constant improvement and we use AI and automation to deliver the lowest cost banking solutions for our growing customer base. We have built out a large data collection platform, with our data warehouse storing over 100m rows of data for accurate credit scoring.

Job Description

Umba is looking for an entrepreneurial candidate to lead the Kenya business and expand Umba’s product to reach within Kenya. This role will be responsible for managing the overall health in-country operations, with a key focus on leading all in-country marketing, partnerships, and customer success operations.

The ideal candidate will have experience working with growth-stage business to identify businesschallenges, propose data-driven solutions and drive execution, as well as a natural ability to leadrelationship management for in-country partnerships.

Responsibilities

• Responsibility 1 – Partnership Management
• Develop and manage relationships with potential strategic partners across eCommerce, telecoms, payments, and banking spheres.
• Lead all partnerships from opportunity identification through to design, negotiation, and
• implementation to develop win-win partnerships that scale Umba’s service offering to new customer segments.
• Support the leadership team in the development of key relationships within national regulators
• Responsibility 2 – Leadership
• Develop and implement strategies for the sustainable attainment of ambitious monthly, quarterly, and annual KPIs across Kenya.
• Work with leadership to identify, build, and manage an in-country team to support business growth.
• Work with product teams to define product roadmap through careful analysis of customer feedback, the competitive landscape, and market trends.
• Ensure the business is well-positioned to provide feedback on and implement regulatory proposals that impact the company from across the government.
• Own country P&L.
• Responsibility 3 – Expansion
• Develop analytical frameworks to assess new opportunities for both geographic and product expansion
• Develop and implement new market launch plans, including supporting regulatory, commercial/ vendor agreements and hiring efforts
• Support with mapping out new product opportunities and successful implementation of pilots
• Establish relationships with senior stakeholders within banking and regulatory sectors to ensure smooth implementation of technical roadmap
• Responsibility 4 –Customer Success
• Manage support team operations to ensure quick resolution of customer complaints and feedback
• Create new customer feedback loops to ensure high Net Promoter Scores and enforce a culture of client centricity across all verticals of the business.
• Responsibility 5 – Marketing
• Support to the marketing team in the targeting of Through the Line marketing campaigns to enhance customer acquisition;
• Use market knowledge to provide feedback on product funnel and customer journeys for customers acquired through digital marketing to achieve low-touch customer growth whilst maintaining portfolio quality.

Skills and Qualifications

• 5+ years of banking, start-up, tech, or business leadership experience in high-performing, direct-to-consumer businesses.
• Experience building relationships with senior stakeholders within banking and regulatory arenas
• A strong data-driven approach to funnel conversion metrics and P&L management withstrong attention to detail.
• Experience working across Credit, Operations, Growth and Leadership teams to onstrategic priorities.
• Experience in hiring and managing a team.

Nice to have

• Master’s Degree in or related Business degree preferred
• Finance
• Deep network of contacts amongst banking, mobile money, payments and eCommerce companies
• Highly proficient in Excel
• Familiarity with tech-enabled credit or payments products and the general fintech landscape
• Experience working with remote teams

Benefits

• Market pay rate and will be negotiated in the interview process
• Stock Options