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
Wave is now the largest financial institution in Senegal, with over 7 million users. And, we’re still in the early days of our product roadmap and potential impact on people’s everyday lives.
We’re looking for someone to launch Wave in new markets. You’ll move to a new country every 6-12 months and own the process of growing from zero to thousands of users there.
It’s an ideal job for someone who has some experience building businesses in Africa and wants to quickly gain a lot more.
In this role, you'll:
- Talk to lots of mobile money users to uncover the country’s most promising growth opportunities.
- Grow our user base from week to week:
- Identify the most strategic locations to open our first agents.
- Recruit our first users – find the people who need Wave most and convince them to give us a try.
- Solve any problems that arise until they love our product and are telling all their friends.
- Build and oversee the teams that will repeat this process in more and more places until we’re an unstoppable force:
- Agent Management – recruits agents and ensures they’re providing excellent service.
- Growth – gets people to try Wave and keep using it.
- Liquidity – ensures agents always have enough cash and float to serve users.
Running a launch is like being the CEO of an early stage startup: you’re the engine that keeps the business moving forward by constantly solving problems and finding new opportunities. You’ll have the support of our global team, but we’re looking for independent, entrepreneurial people who can work autonomously and will thrive on getting things done in challenging environments.
This isn't a typical 9-5 job – some days you’ll be at a port early in the morning speaking to fishermen. Other days you'll be visiting potential office space or meeting with partners. That said, it's a marathon, not a sprint! We believe we’re most productive when we take sufficient time off and have the bandwidth to take care of ourselves and one another.
Key Details
- Location: This role will be based in the country you’ll be launching, with the need to travel frequently to the field to support launch activities. Launches typically last between 6-12 months, after which time you'll transition to preparing for the next launch.
- This is a permanent position.
- 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 offer generous health insurance for yourself and your dependents.
- We help you live your fullest life now! We subsidise gym memberships and fitness classes.
- We support working parents by offering generous parental leave policies.
- We give you all the airtime and mobile data you’ll need.
Requirements
- Fluent in English and French
- Local languages an asset
- 4+ years of experience in operations roles in Africa
- 2+ years of experience managing teams
You might be a good fit if you
- Have founded or helped grow an early-stage B2C company
- Think from first principles to develop innovative solutions
- Are intellectually curious and driven to understand unfamiliar environments
- Can adapt to new cultural settings and build rapport with a diverse range of people
- Are comfortable taking risks, trying new approaches, and making decisions with uncertain outcomes
- Pivot quickly based on new information
- Have a high tolerance for uncertainty, travel, and noisy marketplaces
- Communicate effectively in person and in writing
- 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.
- In 2023, we were on Y Combinator's top 50 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.
What We Do
We're making Africa the first cashless continent.
In 2017, 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 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 November 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. In 2019, we expanded to Cote D'Ivoire. Now, we have millions of users and are growing fast.
Our goal is to drive financial inclusion and make Africa the first cashless continent
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