Business Development Manager – Commercial & Merchant Growth

Role Overview

This position leads commercial growth for a payment and software solutions provider by owning the entire revenue lifecycle—from sourcing and closing new business to ensuring newly signed merchants become active, transacting, and retained. The manager also guides a team of Business Development Executives, sets the pace for pipeline discipline, and works cross-functionally to keep onboarding compliant and efficient. The role is central to the company’s expansion strategy in the fintech ecosystem across banks, SACCOs, remittance firms, corporates, and fellow fintechs.

Key Responsibilities

• Shape and execute the annual business development plan, aligning it with company revenue goals, product priorities, and market-entry targets.
• Take direct ownership of monthly and quarterly revenue numbers for an assigned portfolio of products, regions, and key accounts.
• Proactively source new opportunities through outbound outreach, industry events, referrals, partner introductions, and targeted market research—not just inbound leads.
• Cultivate and manage senior-level relationships with merchants, banks, SACCOs, remittance operators, and fintech partners, positioning the company as a preferred payment technology partner.
• Run the full sales cycle: qualify prospects, build proposals, negotiate commercial terms, draft contracts, and coordinate a smooth handoff to onboarding and technical teams.
• Identify and negotiate strategic partnerships that unlock new revenue streams, transaction volumes, or distribution channels.
• Drive merchant success after go-live by pushing activation rates, supporting transaction growth, addressing churn risk, and running reactivation campaigns for dormant accounts.
• Keep a clean, realistic sales pipeline in the CRM, logging every activity, stage change, and forecast update so leadership has accurate visibility.
• Collaborate with Operations, Compliance, Finance, and Engineering to prevent onboarding bottlenecks and ensure every merchant is implemented in line with regulatory and internal policy.
• Coach and mentor Business Development Executives, helping them improve pitch quality, negotiation skills, and pipeline hygiene while supporting their individual target achievement.
• Review sales and merchant performance data weekly, diagnose shortfalls, and implement corrective actions before targets slip.
• Deliver routine reporting on pipeline health, closed revenue, activation metrics, and emerging risks, along with recommended responses.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Finance, Economics, or a comparable discipline.
• At least five years of hands-on experience in business development, sales, or strategic partnerships, with a proven record of meeting or beating revenue targets.
• Prior experience in fintech, payments, banking, financial services, SaaS, or adjacent technology sectors—ideally with direct involvement in merchant acquisition.
• A strong, active professional network across banking, payments, remittances, SACCOs, telecom, or corporate sectors that can be leveraged immediately for referrals and warm introductions.
• Solid grasp of payment products, card acquiring, digital wallets, remittance flows, and the operational realities of merchant onboarding.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop junior sales staff, including coaching on negotiation, pipeline management, and client communication.
• Excellent presentation and negotiation skills, with the confidence to engage C-level executives and close complex, multi-stakeholder deals.
• Proficiency with CRM systems and sales analytics tools, using data to forecast and prioritise.
• A hunter mindset: comfortable with outbound activity, resilient in the face of rejection, and methodical in following up until a deal is won or lost.