Head of Operations
Dakar, Senegal

Our mission
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 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 make Africa the first cashless continent. And that's where you come in....

How you'll help us achieve it
We’re looking for an Operations Lead who’s resourceful and excited about getting things done.
You'll be responsible for overseeing our operations in Senegal as we rapidly scale our business there.

In this role, you'll:
- Oversee daily operations of the business in Senegal, working from first principles to understand the problems blocking the business’ growth and taking ownership over resolving those problems.
- Work closely with Wave Senegal’s General Manager and Wave’s Executive Team to determine key objectives and operationalize strategies for Wave Senegal.
- Provide direct management of key functional managers within the business.
- Own key projects for Wave Senegal, including developing the strategy and executing on what is needed to achieve them.
- Lead by living Wave's values, and ensure they're deeply engrained within the team.
- Be an advocate for your team within the company more broadly.
- Work with our People Team to identify and hire local talent.
- Help to develop Wave’s global strategy by sharing insights and learnings from Senegal.

Key details
- You'll work from our office in Senegal, with occasional travel to field locations.
- Salary: 2.5M to 3.5M net depending on previous experience, plus equity.
- This is a permanent position.

Requirements
- Speak both English and French fluently.
- Excellent leadership skills. At least eight years experience managing large teams.
- Previous bank or mobile money operations experience.
- Very strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

You might be a good fit if you
- Have built and led strong teams in achieving key results.
- Are deeply passionate about our mission of bringing financial services to the people who need them the most.
- Are intellectually curious, creative in the way you go about tackling problems, and embrace failure as a means to spark innovation and growth.
- Possess a bias toward action and testing, and are analytical in your approach.
- Demonstrate tenacity and a willingness to go the distance to get something done.
- Are a strong communicator, both in writing and in-person, to the point of overcommunication.
- Enjoy owning projects - you're autonomous yet know when to escalate problems.
- Adjust quickly to changing priorities and conditions and cope effectively with complexity and change.
- Can effectively prioritize – you know how to triage problems to make the most impact on the business

Our team
- We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte D'Ivoire, Mali 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 own projects at every stage, from understanding the problem to monitoring your solution in production.
- We’re backed by world-class investors including Sequoia, Stripe, Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and the cofounders of PayPal.

How to apply
Fill out the form below, and upload a resume plus a cover letter, both written in English, describing your interest in Wave and the role.
We review applications on a rolling basis.

Wave is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.