SK
Safaricom Kenya
Head of Product, Merchant Solutions (SMME) at Safaricom Kenya
KenyaFull TimeMid-Senior Level
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Responsibilities
Strategy and roadmap: Define the merchant product vision, segmentation and multi-year roadmap across micro, small and medium merchants, tied to clear commercial outcomes (active merchants, usage, revenue, credit attach).
Portfolio: Own the full merchant stack: acceptance (till, Buy Goods, Paybill, QR), merchant apps and portals, notifications, reconciliation, business tools and value-added services.
Activation before build: Prioritise getting merchants to use what already exists before building new. Run structured experiments on onboarding, configuration and engagement, and hold the team to measurable movement.
Working capital and credit: Partner with financial services to design merchant working-capital and credit journeys that use transaction data well, and fix where the funnel breaks.
Identity and platform foundations: Drive a single merchant identity and a common data model across products, so every merchant has one view of their business, and every market can reuse what Kenya builds.
Data and insight: Set the evidence base: define the core merchant metrics and denominators, instrument journeys, and make roadmap decisions from data and merchant research rather than opinion.
Vendors and delivery: Lead product input into vendor selection and contracts, with particular attention to data rights, IP and reuse across markets. Manage delivery with internal engineering and external partners.
Team and practice: Build and lead a high-performing product team; set the product operating rhythm (discovery, PRDs, release, post-launch review).
Qualifications
Essential
A track record of launching and growing products in Kenya or comparable East African markets, with measurable commercial results.
Strong grasp of merchant payments economics: acceptance, pricing, settlement, reconciliation and merchant lifecycle.
Data fluency: comfortable defining metrics, working with analysts and SQL outputs, and designing experiments.
Experience working across complex stakeholder environments (operators, group functions, regulators, partners) and influencing without direct authority.
Excellent written and verbal communication, including presenting to senior executives.
Bachelor's degree in business, economics, engineering, computer science or related field.
Desirable
Multi-market product experience across several African countries.
Exposure to SME lending, working capital or data-driven credit products.
Experience managing third-party technology vendors and commercial contracts.
Knowledge of Central Bank of Kenya and regional payments and data protection regulation.
MBA or relevant postgraduate qualification.