Senior Public Policy Manager, Francophone Region.
Our mission
We’re making Africa the first cashless continent.
In 2017, over half the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had no bank account. That’s for good reason—the fees are too high, the closest branch can be miles away, and nobody takes cards. Without access to financial institutions, people are forced to keep their savings under the mattress. Small business owners rely on lenders who charge extortionate rates. Parents spend hours waiting in line to pay school fees in cash.
We’re solving this by building financial services that just work: no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don’t always work, you can still send money with Wave. In 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. Now, we have millions of users across six countries and are growing fast.
Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent and that’s where you come in…..
How you’ll help us achieve it
We are looking for a Senior Public Policy Manager based in Senegal. A seasoned professional with a deep understanding of financial inclusion, policy formulation, and enforcement in the financial sector, WAEMU, and the francophone region. Someone who is familiar and well-versed with various business models and has extensive networks both in the private and public sectors.
You’ll be responsible for building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders as we rapidly scale our business in the WAEMU region. You will report to the Group Head of Public Policy (with a dotted reporting to the local country General Manager).
In this role, you will:
Have Strategic Level Contribution
- Advising business and support units like expansion, compliance, and legal based on in-country and cross-country comparative analyses and trends.
- Working within the public policy team to contribute to macro-level thinking on positive and negative headwinds (through market intelligence, research, and more) affecting our business.
- Building playbooks, toolkits, or frameworks that will help the business, expansion, legal, and compliance teams at Wave.
- Reviewing and developing documents for external and internal consumption.
- Ensure Stakeholder and Relationship Management
- Building excellent stakeholder relationships, especially with the General Manager.
- Ensuring that key decision-makers understand Wave’s mission of financial inclusion.
- Representing Wave at conferences and key meetings and being able to present our vision, mission, and impact in a compelling manner.
- Building and supporting key partnerships (business and advocacy-related) for the company.
- Work with Communications
- Work with the PR, Communication, and marketing team to produce, review, and contribute to key strategic communication materials, including but not limited to press releases, blog posts, and video content, that promote a domestic, regional, and global understanding of Wave’s mission.
- Contribute to thought leadership through writing papers, blogs, and other knowledge resources for internal and external consumption.
Key details
- The location is based primarily in Dakar, with travels across the West African sub-region.
- Work authorization in Senegal is required.
Our salaries are competitive and calculated using a transparent formula. We run performance reviews twice a year and award bonuses to strong performers who have been with the company for more than 6 months.
- We offer generous health insurance for yourself and your dependents.
- We support working parents – we offer generous parental leave policies (26 weeks for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers) and subsidized child care when you return to work.
- We help you live your fullest life now- we subsidize gym memberships and fitness classes.
- Airtime reimbursement
- Free food and a beautiful office space
Requirements
- A degree in Finance, Business, Policy, Economics or equivalent
- Fluency in English and French is required
- A minimum of 8+ years of experience in the financial services space is preferred- experience in other sectors like Technology is a nice to have
- Deep understanding of payment systems and other financial sector laws and regulations, including financial inclusion strategies, financial sector development, and other national documents that have direct or indirect relevance to Wave’s business.
- Excellent writing, research, and communication skills.
You might be a good fit if you
- Have strong and high-level networks and enjoy meeting new people (key deciders in telcos, regulatory institutions, administrations, banks and microfinance)
- Are excited and motivated by the power of technology to solve global problems.
- Are entrepreneurial by nature, can think out of the box, and find solutions to blockers.
- Are a clear, proactive, and excellent communicator – both in verbal and writing skills.
- Are excellent at research and can put together technical or non-technical briefs that are well articulated.
- Have exceptional political astuteness
- Are a good team player.
- Are at ease with giving presentations, rolling up your sleeves, and working individually on a small company project or short-term crisis.
- Are intellectually curious, creative in the way you tackle problems, and embrace failure as a means to spark innovation and growth.
- Are excessively detail-oriented and seek to achieve excellence in everything you do.
Our team
- We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte D’Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, Gambia, and Uganda, plus remote team members spread across the world.
- We’re deeply passionate about our mission of bringing radically affordable financial services to the people who need them most.
- We foster autonomy for our employees. You’ll own your projects at every stage, from understanding the problem to monitoring your solution in production.
- We raised the largest Series A in Africa in 2021. Our world-class investors, include Founders Fund, Sequoia Heritage, Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and Partech Africa.
In 2022, we were on Y Combinator’s top 50 companies by revenue.
How to apply
Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English and a cover letter describing your interest in Wave and the role.
We review applications frequently and recommend that you apply to the role that most closely aligns with your skills, experience and career goals.
Wave is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.