SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Wave is a fintech company building financial services across Sub-Saharan Africa, with millions of users across 9 countries. The company's mission is to make Africa the first cashless continent by providing accessible, affordable financial services including mobile payments, peer-to-peer transfers, and business payments.
As Key Account Manager, you will own and grow a portfolio of strategic corporate payment partners while leading a team of Account Supervisors. This is a people-management role combining relationship management, commercial strategy, and operational problem-solving.
Key responsibilities include:
**Portfolio Management & Growth**: Manage a portfolio of key corporate payment partners as their primary business and operational contact. Engage closely with partner stakeholders to understand their business, identify growth blockers, and run regular business reviews covering performance, product roadmap, and open issues. Identify and act on cross-sell opportunities and early churn signals (volume decline, inactive stores). Build and execute account-specific growth roadmaps with clear owners and deadlines.
**Commercial Performance**: Lead analysis of merchant performance to identify what works and what doesn't. Prepare and defend pricing proposals, documenting current volume, growth commitments, and competitive pressure. Structure fee reductions as volume-conditioned tiers rather than flat concessions. Drive in-field activation at partner locations, including staff training and point-of-sale visibility. Onboard new partners and own their ramp-up to target volume.
**Operational Excellence**: Ensure high-quality customer support by advocating for partners' needs and resolving issues related to products, refunds, settlements, and funding requests. Act as first-level resolution for partner incidents, coordinating with Finance, Support, and Product teams. Work with Risk & Fraud teams to minimize fraud and security threats. Monitor portfolio for abnormal activity and unexplained patterns. Identify priority areas for Wave's payments liquidity needs nationwide.
**Data & Analytics**: Track portfolio performance on dashboards, run weekly pulse reports, and translate insights into prioritized actions. Report consistently on portfolio health, open actions, and risks to leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
**Team Leadership**: Manage, coach, and develop a team of Account Supervisors. Set priorities, conduct regular 1:1s, and maintain high performance standards. Provide guidance that strengthens team knowledge and skills. Develop playbooks and workflows. Work closely with Sales, Admin, Corporate Support, Finance, Compliance, Marketing, and Product teams. Help shape Wave's global strategy by sharing insights from the Côte d'Ivoire team's experience. Lead by embodying Wave's values.
This is a permanent position based in Abidjan. Work authorization in Côte d'Ivoire is required.
**Requirements**:
- Degree in general management, sales, project management, finance, international relations, business management, or comparable field
- Minimum 5 years of experience in a similar position (ideally in an international company, bank, mobile money company, or similar)
- Minimum 2 years of experience in a managerial position
- Relevant experience in operations, sales, support, or distribution
- Fluency in French
- Good level of English (role regularly interacts with non-French speakers)
- Proven track record in delivering great customer experience
- Ability to conduct duties discreetly and impartially
**Preferred qualifications**: Team management experience, comfort in both formal presentations and partnership document preparation, enthusiasm for Wave's mission, team player who works independently, result-oriented with engaging personality, ability to build trust with external and internal stakeholders, creative and proactive thinking, excellent communication skills (written and oral), detail-oriented, ability to adjust quickly to changing conditions.
