Team Lead - Onboarding Operations

Your Mission

• You will own how customers and partners are onboarded into RAFIKI, leading a team responsible for reviewing, verifying, and approving onboarding cases across markets.
• Your mission is to build and run an onboarding operation that is fast enough to support growth, rigorous enough to meet regulatory standards, and precise enough to ensure every decision is accurate and defensible.
• You will lead a team of analysts handling KYC/KYB reviews, documentation checks, and onboarding decisions, ensuring cases are processed efficiently, compliance requirements are met, and records are maintained to a high standard. This includes overseeing day-to-day case handling, guiding decision-making on complex or high-risk profiles, and ensuring consistency in how onboarding policies are applied.
• This role goes beyond managing queues. You are responsible for building a system where:
• onboarding decisions are correct the first time
• documentation and data are reliable and audit-ready
• processes are structured, scalable, and continuously improving
• As NALA grows, onboarding complexity will increase across markets, products, and regulatory environments. Your role is to bring clarity, control, and operational discipline to that complexity, ensuring we scale without compromising on compliance or customer experience.

Your Responsibilities in this Role

Team Leadership & Case Ownership

• Lead, coach, and manage a team of onboarding analysts handling KYC/KYB reviews, vendor/customer onboarding, and documentation verification
• Oversee daily case queues, ensuring timely, accurate, and consistent onboarding decisions
• Provide real-time guidance on complex or high-risk cases, supporting sound judgment and escalation where needed
• Set clear performance expectations and drive accountability across quality, speed, and accuracy

Onboarding Operations & Workflow Management

• Own the end-to-end onboarding process, from document collection to final approval
• Ensure all onboarding cases are processed in line with internal policies and regulatory requirements
• Maintain structured, efficient workflows across queues, SLAs, and case prioritisation
• Identify bottlenecks in onboarding journeys and implement solutions to improve turnaround times

Compliance, Risk & Decision Quality

• Ensure onboarding decisions meet KYC/KYB, AML, and regulatory standards across all markets
• Partner closely with Compliance and Legal teams to interpret and apply policy updates
• Maintain high-quality, audit-ready documentation and records
• Monitor and reduce errors, inconsistencies, and compliance risks in onboarding decisions

Performance & Continuous Improvement

• Own key onboarding metrics, including turnaround time, approval rates, error rates, and queue health
• Analyse trends and identify root causes of delays or quality issues
• Drive process improvements that increase efficiency without compromising compliance
• Introduce and support automation initiatives (including AI) to scale operations

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Compliance, Product, Sales, and Operations teams to align onboarding processes with business and regulatory needs
• Act as a key point of contact for onboarding-related queries and escalations
• Ensure smooth handoffs between onboarding and downstream teams

Quality Assurance & Standards

• Implement and maintain QA frameworks to ensure consistency in onboarding decisions
• Conduct regular audits and reviews of analyst work
• Establish clear guidelines and playbooks for onboarding processes
• Continuously raise the bar for quality, accuracy, and operational discipline

Requirements

Must-have Requirements

• 3+ years experience in onboarding operations, compliance, or legal within financial services or fintech, with direct exposure to KYC/KYB and customer/vendor onboarding workflows
• At least 2 years of team leadership experience, managing analysts in a high-volume, detail-heavy environment
• Strong working knowledge of regulatory requirements (KYC, KYB, AML, CDD) and how they are applied in real onboarding decisions
• Proven experience managing end-to-end onboarding processes — including document collection, verification, decisioning, and record-keeping
• Track record of improving operational performance, including turnaround times, quality/accuracy, and queue management
• High attention to detail and decision accuracy, with the ability to review complex cases and make sound, defensible judgments
• Experience handling escalations and high-risk cases, with confidence in applying policy and knowing when to escalate
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify patterns, diagnose root causes, and implement improvements
• Experience working cross-functionally with Compliance, Legal, Product, or Commercial teams
• Comfort operating in fast-paced, ambiguous environments, with the ability to create structure and prioritise effectively

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Experience in a high-growth startup or scaling fintech environment
• Exposure to multi-market or cross-border onboarding operations
• Experience implementing process automation or AI-driven onboarding workflows
• Familiarity with onboarding, compliance, or case management tools

Benefits

• 23 Days Off Plus KE Bank Holidays: Take the time to decompress. Working at a startup is hard!
• Birthday Leave: Celebrate your special day with a bonus day off to take off in that month.
• Enhanced Parental Leave: We offer 16 weeks of full pay for the primary caregiver and 4 weeks of full pay for the secondary caregiver (After a 6-month probationary period)
• Learning Budget: Fuel your growth with $1000 annually for learning and development.
• Monthly Socials: Join fun social events every month for great times.
• Free Coffee: Enjoy barista-style coffee at your fingertips.
• Free Lunch: Every day