Head of Product – Merchant Solutions (SME)

About the role

M-Pesa Africa is seeking a senior product leader to own the end‑to‑end merchant product portfolio, from tills and QR payments to business apps, tools and credit. Based in Kenya, you will design a scalable merchant proposition that can be replicated across multiple African markets.

Key responsibilities

• Define the merchant product vision, segmentation and multi‑year roadmap tied to commercial outcomes such as active merchants, usage and revenue.
• Own the full merchant stack – acceptance, merchant apps, notifications, reconciliation, business tools and value‑added services.
• Prioritise activation of existing features, run structured experiments on onboarding and engagement, and hold the team to measurable movement.
• Partner with financial services to design working‑capital and credit journeys that leverage transaction data.
• Drive a single merchant identity and common data model across products and markets.
• Set the evidence base by defining core merchant metrics, instrumenting journeys and making data‑driven roadmap decisions.
• Lead vendor selection and contract negotiations, ensuring data rights, IP and reuse across markets.
• Build and lead a high‑performing product team, establishing discovery, PRD, release and post‑launch rhythms.

Required profile

• 10+ years in product management with at least 4 years leading product teams or portfolios.
• Deep experience in mobile money, payments or fintech in Africa, preferably with merchant or SME products at scale.
• Proven track record launching and growing products in Kenya or comparable East African markets with measurable commercial results.
• Strong understanding of merchant payments economics – acceptance, pricing, settlement and lifecycle.
• Data fluency: comfortable defining metrics, working with analysts and SQL outputs, and designing experiments.
• Experience influencing across complex stakeholder environments without direct authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including senior executive presentations.
• Bachelor’s degree in business, economics, engineering, computer science or related field.

Required skills

• SQL