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 are looking for an HR Lead with proven expertise in Senegalese labor law, HR policy definition, and implementation. You will lead a team and provide exceptional leadership and guidance in delivering Wave's People strategy in Senegal.
In this role, you'll;
- Plan and create strategies to ensure the achievement of the HR objectives.
- Provide expert professional advice to senior management in all areas of HR, including payroll, learning and development, employment law, HR policy, best practice, and workforce development.
- Develop effective employment policies in consultation with senior managers, executives, trade unions, staff, and partners.
- Provide professional leadership, support, and development to HR staff to increase knowledge, share best practices, and ensure professional standards are met.
- Ongoing review and improvement of the company’s employee programs, staff benefits, and packages.
- Be accountable for company compliance with current regulations, professional standards, policies and procedures, and legislation.
- Oversee the development and implementation of succession planning.
- Implement a continuous improvement agenda that focuses on engagement and welfare activities, maximizing productivity, devolving HR responsibilities to line managers, and building leadership capability.
- Ensure the organizational structure uses development principles most appropriate to support future growth.
- Design and lead the performance review program that supports continuous development for all employees.
- Ensure the efficient management of annual HR budgets.
- Form a strong organizational culture so that the company values are displayed.
- Promote inspirational leadership by demonstrating the company’s values.
- Effectively communicate any initiatives and programs that encourage the delivery of the company’s values.
- Champion a high-performance culture with a focus on successful outcomes.
- Create and oversee the plan for diversity, equality, and inclusion that aligns with company values, business strategy, and commitments.
- Oversee the creation of training and development plans for all employees and ensure they operate at a consistently high standard.
- Ensure employee training requirements are well managed and monitored.
- Coach, mentor and support senior colleagues to identify strengths and development needs.
- Form strong relationships with Senior Managers, Executives, and Trade Union representatives to ensure that the team perspective is fully represented in decision-making.
- Provide management and strong leadership of the HR business unit functions and staff, including advice and direction on work priorities, budget and staff resources, strategic and policy issues, and organization and staff management issues.
- Manage all staff record maintenance, including salary and benefits such as insurance, staff transactions such as hires, promotions, transfers, performance reviews, and terminations.
Key details
- Location: You'll work from our office in Dakar .
- Work authorization in Senegal.
- 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 pay generous health care insurance premium costs for yourself and your dependents.
- We support working parents - we offer generous parental leave policies (26 weeks for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers) and subsidized childcare when you return to work.
- We help you live your fullest life now- we subsidize gym memberships and fitness classes.
- Airtime reimbursement.
- Free food and a beautiful office space.
Requirements
- Master's degree or professional training in business administration, HR, or any other related field.
- Knowledge of HRIS systems and should be open to learning how to use our HR systems at Wave.
- Experience using Google Suite (doc, Sheets) or Microsoft Office.
- At least 8 years experience in a similar role, ideally at an international company.
- Strong organizational and time management skills and ability to prioritize.
You might be a good fit if you
- Demonstrate tenacity and a willingness to go the distance to get something done.
- Can function autonomously with minimal guidance.
- Possess strong collaboration, communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills.
- Display strong work ethics and respect internal policies.
- Are a good people manager and help team members grow.
- Have managed successful teams to achieve ambitious goals.
- Are comfortable defaulting to over-communication and overreaching when it comes to coordination.
- Adjust quickly to changing priorities and conditions and cope effectively with complexity and change.
- Are analytical in your approach to problems.
- Have developed processes with minimal guidance and have implemented them.
- Are solution-driven and detail-oriented with strong task follow-through.
- Can understand and follow established priorities.
- Are flexible to work irregular hours.
- 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
