Country Director - Botswana

About the role: The Country Director serves as the officially appointed local principal officer for Ezra’s licensed Fintech operations in Botswana. This role is the principal representative for local regulatory bodies and major customers, responsible for ensuring comprehensive operational efficiency, financial prudence, and strict adherence to all local financial regulations. The ultimate objective is driving profitable market expansion and safeguarding Ezra’s compliance status while leading the local team. Key responsibilities: • Regulatory & Compliance Leadership: Act as the legally mandated principal officer for the licensed entity in Botswana, ensuring the implementation of all policies and procedures that support the strategic objectives of the Regulated Institution in accordance with company-wide practices. • Business Growth: Drive market penetration and adoption of Ezra's core digital lending solutions: Airtime Credit Services (ACS), Nano, and BNPL. • Financial Stewardship: Take full responsibility for the country P&L. This includes ensuring the total expenditure and income in the course of operation for the financial year is strictly in line with the Regulated Institution’s budget as set and approved by the Board and CEO, and regularly apprising the Board on the financial status of the Regulated Institution. • Technology & Data Integrity: Oversee local operations to ensure the business processes—driven by central technology and data teams (including determining eligibility, managing risk, loan issuance, recovery, reporting, reconciliation, and billing)—are robust, reliable, and secure. • Strategic Alignment: Partner closely with global product and technology teams to explore new ways of using the platform and transactional data to improve existing products and develop new product opportunities. • Stakeholder Relations: Manage key relationships with mobile/digital wallet operators, financial service providers, and governmental bodies to maintain and expand Ezra’s market share. • Operational and People Management: Prescribe clear job descriptions for local staff, ensuring responsibilities meet local regulatory requirements, align with company-wide operating models, and are implemented and monitored on a regular basis. Support local talent management plans for the Regulated Institution, including providing regular updates to the Board on local succession plans. Qualifications and Experience: • A Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration, Computer Science, or a related field. An advanced degree (MBA) is highly preferred. • A minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in the Telecom or financial services sector, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role (CEO, MD, or Country Head) within a regulated FinTech, digital lending, Telecom operator, or banking institution in Botswana. • Must possess a deep understanding of the local regulatory and compliance landscape (e.g., NBFIRA, Bank of Botswana, Micro Lending Regulations 2012, Financial Intelligence Act 2022/2019). • Demonstrated strategic leadership, exceptional communication, and analytical proficiency. Preferred Qualifications: • Proven network of contacts within the Botswanan financial services industry, telecommunications sector, and government regulatory bodies. • Direct experience managing a high-volume, data-driven operational environment. The ideal candidate is someone who: • Thrives under pressure, prioritising effectively, and delivering in fast-paced, changing environments. • Comfortably operates in ambiguous and fast-paced environments, breaking down complex regulatory and business challenges. • Can synthesise complex technological and data-driven processes into clear, compliant business outcomes. • Demonstrates a high degree of integrity and accountability required for a locally regulated principal officer. Company overview: Ezra provides B2B digital lending solutions for emerging markets in partnership with mobile and digital wallet operators and financial service providers. Ezra supports 24 operations in 23 countries, across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Our key office locations are in Nairobi, Kenya and Dubai, UAE. Our flagship products are Airtime Credit Services (ACS), Nano and BNPL. • ACS is an airtime or data advance offered to prepaid mobile subscribers at the point of low credit. • Nano is a micro cash advance offered to mobile wallet users on demand. • BNPL facilitates payment installments for products and services As a FinTech company, our business is entirely technology and data driven, from determining subscriber eligibility, generating relevant offers, managing risk, loan issuance, recovery, optimising performance and reporting, reconciliation and billing. Each day we process approximately 21M loan requests and 1.4 TB of data across our markets. This process needs to be robust, reliable and secure. But it doesn’t end there. We’re exploring new ways of using our platform and transactional data to improve our products and develop new product opportunities.