About this role
Airtel Money Kenya wishes to recruit for the role of Merchant Lead. This role reports to the Head of Airtel Money Merchant and Distribution. He/she will be responsible for expanding and strengthening the Airtel Money acceptance ecosystem across the Kenyan SMEs, corporates, and payment service providers, positioning the business as a leader in digital payments. The role drives the acquisition, activation, and performance of merchants and micro-merchants while managing key accounts, franchise partners, and distribution channel productivity
Key Responsibilities
- Develop targeted strategies to onboard merchants and micro-merchants across key Kenyan trade segments.
- Enforce trade compliance, branding standards, and service quality across the Airtel Money field network.
- Drive growth and recovery initiatives in low-activity merchant pockets such as peri-urban, estates, and rural trading centers.
- Manage and grow strategic merchant accounts including chain retailers, bill-pay partners, digital platforms, and aggregators.
- Ensure operational uptime, issue resolution, and revenue growth contribution from top-tier merchant accounts.
- Maintain regular performance reporting and stakeholder governance.
- Expand Airtel Money distribution coverage by identifying gaps across counties, estates, and high-density trading corridors.
- Recruit, train, and manage franchise partners, super-agents, and channel distributors to ensure accessibility and proximity.
- Strengthen liquidity models, float circulation, and cash management to ensure agent and merchant up time.
- Provide data-driven insights to drive adoption in key categories such as utilities payments, merchant payments, P2B, and repeat usage.
- Collaborate with Sales, Marketing, and Zonal teams to activate county-level Airtel Money penetration plans.
Qualifications and Required Competencies
- Business related Bachelors’ degree.
- Minimum 5-8 years’ experience in financial services, fintech, payments, or mobile money, distribution, key account management, or route-to-market.
- Proven track record in merchant acquisition, business development, or payments strategy.
- Strong commercial acumen, negotiation, and partnership management skills.
- Deep understanding of digital payments, mobile money, and Kenyan financial inclusion landscape.
- Experience managing franchise or distributor networks.
- Strong analytics and data interpretation skills.
- FMCG distribution knowledge and trade channel execution capability.
- Key account management and commercial negotiation skills.
- Strong route-to-market planning and channel penetration intelligence.