Growth Lead (UEMOA and CEMAC)

About the Role

Responsibilities

• Regional Business Development & Customer Acquisition: Own and execute Cede's growth and customer acquisition strategy across the assigned CEMAC and UEMOA markets, serving as Cede's primary point of contact with relevant regulators, licensing bodies, and government agencies.
• Translate Cede's group level commercial strategy into market specific growth plans, taking into consideration local market dynamics, customer needs, competitive landscape, and regulatory requirements.
• Identify and target high value customer segments including corporates, multinational companies, NGOs, development organisations, energy companies, financial institutions, importers/exporters, and other businesses with significant FX, liquidity, and cross border payment requirements.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with CFOs, Finance Directors, Treasurers, Country Directors, Procurement Heads, CEOs, and other senior decision-makers.
• Own the end to end sales cycle, from market mapping and prospecting through commercial discussions, onboarding, activation, and relationship management.
• Build and maintain a strong pipeline of prospective customers and strategic accounts, with clear visibility on deal stages, expected transaction volumes, revenue potential, and conversion timelines.
• Drive customer activation and transaction growth following onboarding, ensuring that new customers generate meaningful and recurring transaction volumes.
• Identify opportunities to cross sell Cede's FX, liquidity, treasury, remittance, and cross border payment solutions, and develop strategies to increase customer retention, wallet share, and transaction volumes across existing accounts.
• Represent Cede at industry conferences, business forums, trade associations, and relevant stakeholder events across the region.
• Market Expansion & Regional Growth: Lead Cede's commercial expansion into priority CEMAC and UEMOA markets, working closely with the Management team to identify and prioritize the most attractive markets.
• Conduct market research and competitive analysis to identify customer segments, payment corridors, FX opportunities, market gaps, and potential revenue opportunities.
• Develop market entry plans and commercial business cases covering market opportunity, target customers, expected transaction flows, competitive positioning, operating requirements, and revenue potential.
• Identify and develop new FX and cross border payment corridors across and between the CEMAC and UEMOA regions.
• Build a strong understanding of local payment ecosystems, including banks, fintechs, mobile money operators, payment service providers, FX providers, and other financial infrastructure providers.
• Work with Cede's Product, Treasury, Operations, Compliance, and Finance teams to ensure new market opportunities can be operationalized effectively.
• Provide market intelligence and regular recommendations to the executive team regarding expansion opportunities, competitive developments, pricing, customer needs, and market risks.
• Support the development of Cede's regional brand and market presence across Francophone West and Central Africa.
• Regulatory & Market Stakeholder Engagement: Serve as a key commercial representative of Cede when engaging with regulators, central banks, government agencies, industry associations, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Support Cede's market entry and licensing initiatives by providing local market intelligence, introductions, stakeholder access, and commercial context.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with relevant regulatory and government stakeholders across assigned markets.
• Work closely with Cede's central Compliance and Legal teams to ensure that proposed products, partnerships, and commercial activities are aligned with applicable regulatory requirements, and support them in navigating local regulatory requirements and market entry processes.
• Monitor key developments in payments, remittances, foreign exchange, digital financial services, and other relevant regulations and communicate potential commercial implications to the leadership team.

General Qualifications

• 8–12+ years of experience in business development, corporate banking, transaction banking, treasury, cross border payments, remittances, fintech, or financial services.
• Significant professional experience across Francophone West Africa and Central Africa, with strong knowledge of either the UEMOA and CEMAC markets.
• Proven track record of acquiring and managing corporate or institutional clients.
• Demonstrated experience selling financial products or solutions to CFOs, Treasurers, Finance Directors, CEOs, and other senior decision makers.
• Strong understanding of cross border payments, FX, treasury, liquidity, remittances, or related financial services.
• Experience working with regulators, central banks, government agencies, or industry bodies is highly desirable.
• Existing relationships with corporates, banks, fintechs, NGOs, development organisations, or financial institutions across the region will be a significant advantage.
• Experience working within an early stage or high growth fintech environment is preferred.
• Strong understanding of the UEMOA/XOF and CEMAC/XAF financial ecosystems, including FX markets, cross border payments, banking, mobile money, settlement infrastructure, and key market participants.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, credible with regulators, banking partners, and diaspora community leaders alike.
• Commercially minded, with a bias for execution and comfort operating with limited local infrastructure in the early stages.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English, French fluency preferred.
• High personal integrity, given the compliance sensitive nature of the role.
• Comfortable working across time zones with a distributed leadership team based in Canada and the UK.
• Willingness to travel extensively across the CEMAC and UEMOA regions.