Head of Product at Nomanini

Description
CLOSING DATE: 9 July 2021

About Nomanini

• Nomanini, founded in 2011, is a pioneering fintech company that provides informal retail merchants with access to digital payment solutions and credit to improve their business. Our platform provides interoperable retail payments and supply chain financing by combining new digital financial services with existing distribution networks.
• Nomanini currently has 25+ staff and is growing 500% year-on-year, expecting to continue scaling up at this rate for the next 3-5 years.
• This role is an opportunity to have a massive positive impact on many tens of thousands of lives. We are looking for someone who finds motivation in the work we do and is willing to work with us to deliver services in this underserved space.
• Nomanini’ s values, outlined below, are critical to our success:
• Be honest ... so we ... communicate frequently and candidly.
• Value discussion ... so we ... make deliberate decisions.
• Focus on results ... so we ... get stuff done.
• Experiment ... so we ... learn and grow by taking controlled and deliberate risks.
• Respect people ... so we ... value diversity of thinking.

Position Summary

At Nomanini, we believe that the people who work with us and for us are our most important resource. To this end, Nomanini is looking for an experienced, self-driven and results-focused professional to take care of Nomanini’ s product function. This role reports to the CEO and is part of our Executive Committee.

Key Relationships

External stakeholders:

• FMCG’s
• Banks
• Distributors
• Internal stakeholders:

Product Management team

• Revenue team
• Engineering team
• Exco
• Finance
• Marketing and Communications
• Employee Success

Key responsibilities:

Build winning products for merchants, distributors, and partners (banks, FMCG):

• Maintain a strong connection to the reality of the retail MSMEs in the informal sector, their needs and aspirations and act as the advocate inside and outside of the business
• Develop a long term roadmap for a single platform with multiple products and maintain and communicate a clear direction and messaging for the product portfolio
• Work closely with commercial and technology team to maintain product value propositions
• Design and implement unique selling propositions (USPs) and detailed workflows that sets Nomanini apart from its competitors
• Improve and grow Nomanini' s product management processes and product approach as we continue to scale and grow as an organization
• Ensure internal strategic alignment and knowledge building

Key Performance Areas:

Define product roadmap that serves informal merchants, financial service institutions, FMCG partners

• Synthesize input from multiple internal and external sources and create a coherent product strategy and drive execution for all products to fulfill business objectives.
• Be a strong partner with our CTO and the engineering team broadly, collaborating towards better team execution.
• Communicate and collaborate with key stakeholders across the company, improving cross functional product management efforts.
• Be a leader of our innovation in the organisation and a strategic contributor to the executive team.

Driving product growth and delivery, scaling teams and setting product direction for Nomanini

• Drive product delivery across the key markets factoring in the current and projected future state of the relevant markets, competitors, regulatory pressures, etc.
• Share best practices, staying engaged with key ongoing market developments, regulatory interventions, competitor activity, events and conferences, etc.
• Contribute and/or lead through the development life cycle, working as an integrated part of the delivery team
• Ensure a metrics and data-driven approach to ensure that the company is building the right product .

Build and maintain product team and processes

• Lead, coach, and hire a growing and diverse team of product managers.
• Learn from the current team to become the steward of our product offering and help us achieve and grow our product vision.
• Own product roadmaps and empower your team to update these regularly with key hypotheses and milestones.
• Prioritise what we build with objective cost to value measures.
• Design diligent product experiments from hypothesis to measuring outcome in an iterative approach.

Requirements
Qualifications

• STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths) Degree or related qualification.
• Post graduate qualification would be advantageous.

Experience

• 10+ years’ experience in Product Management and within the FinTech and Financial Services sectors, including engaging with external customers.
• Experience developing solutions for low income user groups in Africa, and/or other developing markets.
• Successful B2B product development and/or management experience, engaging with internal colleagues and third party suppliers (e.g. Technology, Operations, Finance, Revenue, Marketing).
• Experience delivering complex fintech and API products, technologies, and/or platforms

Technical Competencies

• In-depth understanding of the ecommerce landscape, and ability to quickly learn complex domains.
• Technical knowledge and ability to effectively communicate and discuss technical requirements with engineers.
• Ability to distill complex metrics into product decisions.
• Critical thinking skills and ability to draw insight from incomplete data to make final decisions.
• Comfort in a fast-paced and agile development environment.

Behavioural Competencies

Result-driven

• Proven organizational ability and working within tight deadlines, often under pressure.
• The ability to work in a cross-functional team.

Strategic Thinking

• Empathy with retailers and the stakeholders around them.
• Ability to process and make decisions where certainty/data is limited.
• Strong analytical skills and financial literacy.
• Ability to apply quantitative analytical approaches, communicate effectively and confidently (both oral and written).

Collaboration / Influence

• Vision, creativity, presence, and credibility. A collaborative and flexible style. Ability to interact effectively with senior leadership and business sponsors.
• Ability to influence and negotiate effectively at all levels (including C – Level) and across a variety of businesses.
• Exceptional leadership skills, with the ability to collaborate across a highly matrixed organization.
• Consulting ability to determine context, collate relevant facts/data, analyze and coherently articulate the challenge, potential solutions and recommended solutions.