Business Head

The opportunity

Sav-Money is Savanna's mobile money and digital wallet platform the Group's most advanced product build to date, engineered on our own cloud-native stack with AI at the centre of scoring, risk and customer intelligence. It runs on a proprietary technology platform already serving USSD, WhatsApp, mobile app and IVR channels, with an event-driven integration layer and a mobile money and lending service core.

We are looking for a Business Head to own it. This is a rare mandate: a wallet with a genuine differentiator, a telecom parent with its own distribution and a subscriber base to convert, and a market where mobile money is already the primary financial rail for tens of millions of people. You will build the business in Uganda first, then take the template to Tanzania, Kenya and the Group's next markets.

If you have spent your career scaling wallets in India and want a role where you own the whole business rather than a slice of it, this is that role.

What you will own

P&L. Full commercial ownership of Sav-Money in Uganda revenue, cost, contribution and the path to profitability with the mandate to replicate across Group markets.

Growth. Customer acquisition, activation, 30-day activity rates, transaction volume and value, and float growth. Converting the Savanna mobile and fibre base into active wallet users.

Distribution. Building the agent and merchant network from the ground up recruitment, liquidity management, commission structures, training and field force. This is the hardest part of the job and the one that decides whether the business works.

Product roadmap. P2P, merchant payments, bill pay, bulk and salary disbursements, savings, micro-lending and device financing — sequenced against what the market and the licence allow.

Credit and risk. The AI-driven scoring agenda: alternative-data underwriting built on telco and wallet behaviour, limit assignment, portfolio quality and collections strategy.

Partnerships. Banks, licensed lenders, aggregators, billers, employers and institutional disbursement clients.

Regulatory relationships. Working alongside Group Legal and the central bank on licensing, e-money and lending compliance.

Team. Recruiting and leading commercial, product, distribution and risk functions.

What we are looking for

• 4+ years in mobile money, digital wallets, payments or consumer fintech, with at least 3+ years owning a P&L or leading a business unit.
• A demonstrable record of scaling a wallet or payments product to millions of users — whether in the Indian UPI / PPI ecosystem or in African mobile money.
• Deep, practical understanding of agent-based cash-in / cash-out distribution and agent liquidity economics.
• Exposure to digital lending: scoring models, portfolio quality, provisioning and collections.
• Comfort operating inside a regulated e-money framework — RBI / NPCI in India, or an equivalent regime elsewhere.
• Strong commercial numeracy: you can build and defend the unit economics of a transaction, an agent and a customer.
• MBA or equivalent postgraduate qualification preferred.
• Willing and able to relocate to Kampala, Uganda.

Also valued

• Prior experience in an African market, or in another emerging market with a cash-dominant economy.
• USSD-first product design — a large share of our users will never open an app.
• Merchant acquiring, QR and till-code ecosystems.
• Exposure to fundraising processes with development finance institutions or private equity investors, and to the business-plan and diligence work they require.
• Launching a financial product in a greenfield market rather than optimising an established one.

Compensation

Compensation is flexible and will be structured to match the calibre and suitability of the candidate. We would rather find the right person and build the package around them than screen on a band.

What we offer

End-to-end ownership of a flagship Group business, reporting into senior Group leadership.

A multi-market mandate — build it once in Uganda, roll it out across five countries.

Direct access to promoters who are actively involved and decide quickly.