Role Purpose 

• To drive Kuunda’s commercial expansion across Africa by leading strategic business development, structuring complex commercial partnerships, and managing contractual workflows from early engagement through launch and beyond.
• This role is central to building Kuunda’s ecosystem of banks, telcos, fintechs, platforms, and financial institutions, while coordinating closely with in-country teams and cross-functional stakeholders. The Commercial Manager – Africa converts strategic opportunities into structured, executable, and scalable partnerships aligned with Kuunda’s product and growth strategy.

Key Responsibilities (Core Focus)

Partner Contracting & Commercial Structuring

• Own the end-to-end commercial negotiation & contracting journey with strategic partners - from early scoping and due diligence through drafting, negotiation, execution, and amendments. This will involve a strong working knowledge of complex contract execution (with limited legal counsel support), and a deep understand of Kuunda's commercial case formulations, validations and forecasting.
• Lead creation and review of legal and commercial documentation including NDAs, SLAs, due diligence packs, addendums, and partnership agreements in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders.
• Orchestrate cross-functional input across product, scoring, tech, finance, compliance, risk, and IT teams to ensure contracts and commercial agreements reflect operational, regulatory, and technical realities.
• Identify and resolve contractual and commercial bottlenecks related to pricing, SLAs, risk allocation, funding structures, and operational scope.
• Develop and maintain strong working relationships with partner legal, compliance, commercial, and operations teams to build trust and ensure long-term alignment.

 Strategic Business Development & Relationship Management

• Lead the identification, prioritization, and development of new commercial opportunities with banks, MNOs/MMOs, fintechs, platforms, and other strategic partners across Kuunda’s focus markets.
• Own senior-level partner engagement from initial discussions through commercial alignment, positioning Kuunda’s embedded finance and digital credit solutions effectively.
• Work closely with in-country teams to leverage local market context, relationships, and regulatory insight, while retaining overall ownership of the opportunity and BD process.
• Coordinate cross-functional collaboration (data, product, credit, finance, compliance, IT) to assess feasibility, shape partnership models, and develop commercially sound structures.
• Develop tailored partner engagement strategies that address specific partner priorities around revenue-sharing, risk-sharing, growth, and revenue optimization.
• Lead the preparation and delivery of commercial proposals, business cases, and partnership presentations.
• Serve as Kuunda’s primary commercial lead in strategic discussions, ensuring clear articulation of Kuunda’s value proposition and partnership framework.

Preferred / Value-Add Responsibility

Strategic Funding & Soft Capital Mobilization

• Develop and manage a pipeline of catalytic capital opportunities including grants, challenge funds, guarantees, and concessional funding aligned with Kuunda’s expansion strategy.
• Support the preparation of concept notes, technical proposals, budgets, and monitoring & evaluation frameworks that position Kuunda’s products as fundable financial inclusion solutions.
• Build relationships with donors, foundations, DFIs, and CSR initiatives to strengthen Kuunda’s ability to blend soft capital with commercial expansion.
• Contribute to negotiations with funding institutions to structure support that de-risks market entry and accelerates scale.

Core Experience & Skills

• Strong experience in commercial partnerships, business development, or strategic alliances within financial services, fintech, digital lending, or embedded finance.
• Demonstrated ability to structure and negotiate complex commercial agreements involving balance sheet providers (Commercial banks, MFIs and NBFIs) , MNOs, fintechs, or platform partners.
• Experience working across multiple African markets and navigating diverse regulatory and ecosystem environments.
• Ability to coordinate cross-functional stakeholders (product, data, tech, finance, risk, compliance) to move opportunities from concept to execution-ready stage.
• Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to build business cases and align partnership structures with product and risk realities.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, comfortable engaging senior external partners.
• Ability to travel to other markets (30%-50%) each month.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience engaging with donors, DFIs, or catalytic capital providers in support of financial inclusion or digital finance initiatives.
• Fluency in French (spoken and written) and/or Arabic (spoken), particularly for engagement in Francophone African and MENAP markets.

Key Outcomes

• The Commercial Manager – Africa builds and progresses a strong pipeline of strategic partnerships across priority African markets.
• Commercial opportunities are led proactively from origination through structuring and into execution-ready agreements.
• Cross-functional teams are effectively coordinated to deliver commercially sound, operationally viable partnership models.
• Kuunda strengthens its position as a trusted embedded finance partner to banks, telcos, platforms, and — where relevant — funding institutions.