Partnerships & Growth Manager

Our client is a high-growth fintech company building the next generation of payment infrastructure across Africa. Their mission is to make money movement seamless, inclusive, and scalable across borders. They operate at the intersection of financial innovation and real-world impact, empowering businesses and consumers with tools to thrive in a rapidly digitising economy.

Job Type: Full-time

Workplace: Hybrid

Location: Cape Town

Reports To: CEO/COO

Role Overview

The Partnerships & Growth Manager is a unique hybrid role that sits at the intersection of commercial leadership and product thinking. You will own strategic partnerships and revenue growth - sourcing, negotiating, and closing high-value deals across liquidity providers, rails providers etc. while also acting as the bridge between business teams and our product and engineering functions. You bring the commercial drive of sales and the business understanding of products, enabling you to not only win clients and forge partnerships but deeply understand what we build and why it matters.

Responsibilities

Partnership Development & Revenue Growth

• Source, develop, and close strategic partnerships with liquidity providers, payment rails providers, financial institutions, and other ecosystem players
• Own the full partnership lifecycle from initial outreach through negotiation, contracting, and ongoing relationship management
• Drive revenue growth through creative deal structuring and identification of monetisation opportunities
• Build and maintain a robust pipeline of high-value partnership opportunities
• Develop go-to-market strategies for new partnerships and business lines
• Work closely with the executive team to strengthen external relationships that support long-term revenue growth and market expansion
• Attend industry conferences, networking events, and ecosystem meetups to build relationships, identify partnership opportunities, and strengthen our client’s market presence
• Represent the company at relevant industry events and conferences to expand the partnership network and stay informed on market trends and opportunities

Business and Technical Product Collaboration

• Collaborate with Product Manager to translate partner and client requirements into clear, structured product documentation (BRDs, user stories, integration briefs) for the engineering team
• Provide market intelligence and competitive insights to inform product roadmap decisions
• Act as the voice of the market in product discussions - articulating client pain points, competitive gaps, and integration needs
• Support product roadmap prioritisation by surfacing revenue-critical requirements from the market

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work with Compliance, Operations, Risk, and Product teams to ensure commercial initiatives are viable and executable
• Coordinate with internal stakeholders to ensure seamless client onboarding and partner integration experiences

Strategic Analysis & Planning

• Conduct market research and competitive analysis to identify partnership opportunities
• Develop business cases and ROI models for potential partnerships
• Contribute to overall business strategy and growth planning

Performance & Reporting

• Monitor pipeline performance, partnership KPIs, and revenue metrics, providing regular updates to executive leadership
• Use data and market insight to refine strategy, iterate on approach, and drive continuous improvement

Requirements 

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Commerce, or a related field
• 5+ years' experience in commercial, sales, or partnerships roles within fintech, crypto, payments, or financial services
• Proven track record of building and converting sales pipelines and closing complex, multi-stakeholder deals
• Exposure to sales strategies and revenue growth implementation initiative
• Exposure to product management, business analysis, or technical roles - able to engage credibly with engineering teams
• Comfortable reading API documentation, understanding integration workflows, and articulating technical value proposition
• Strong understanding of the African payments landscape and the competitive and regulatory environment
• Proficiency in tools such as Jira, Confluence, or similar or a demonstrable ability to learn quickly
• Excellent written and verbal communication, presentation, and negotiation skills

Key Competencies & Attributes

• Strong commercial judgement combined with a product and data-driven mindset
• Confident communicator with executive presence - equally at home in a boardroom and a technical stand-up
• Ability to influence across functions and engage senior stakeholders internally and externally
• Entrepreneurial, decisive, and resilient in fast-paced, ambiguous environments
• Collaborative, transparent, and aligned with a low-politics, high-ownership culture
• Bias for action - you move things forward and take accountability for outcomes

Benefits

• Mission-Driven Work: The opportunity to work on solving cross-boarder payments in Africa. Connecting us to the world, and the world to us.
• A startup environment with massive growth: High pace, high growth where your work directly shapes and impacts the company.
• Competitive Compensation: A salary package that matches your expertise and the market rate.