Business Leader, Acceptance Development (Business Development, Acceptance solutions) – Johannesburg, South Africa

Business Leader, Acceptance Development (Business Development, Acceptance solutions) – Johannesburg, South Africa
Introduction
This individual is the 'Go To' person for acceptance across South Africa, ensuring alignment between individual markets 'go-to-market' approaches and the overall Middle East Africa Division and APMEA Acceptance strategies, taking into account the region's longer term strategic initiatives.
Responsibilities
• Establish new partner / vendor/ enabler / joint venture integration with capabilities to sustain the company’s competitive advantage and tracking performance against key objectives. This individual will have responsibility for establishing and maintaining strong business relationships with both acquirers and merchants across Southern Africa.
• Fundamental to accelerating the development of the South African business, is a backbone of increased acceptance in partnership with key Acquirers and merchants. The individual will be responsible for developing a dedicated Acquirer plan, along the lines of the current “issuer” business development model, however focused exclusively on Acceptance across South Africa
• In addition to this the candidate will develop an executable roadmap on how to approach and develop relationships with key merchants. The plan should be aimed at extracting increased value and offering to enhance the overall relationships with these merchants as well increase our overall revenue generating opportunities with these merchants. The South African retailer base in South Africa is very concentrated powerful and does not see the value of card schemes; they are especially active in the interchange debate and other regulatory issues. The retailers are currently looking into collaborating to build their own payments scheme. As a result the person will need to be highly skilled at managing complex relationships and ideally an Acquiring “heavyweight” in the industry in order to increase the company’s credibility in this space.
• The resource will be required to support initiatives from inception all the way through fruition, effectively and efficiently leveraging cross functional support teams, available budgets, and in need be external vendors
• The successful candidate will be required to have a good understanding of P&L and how to maximize revenue through an effective acceptance strategy.
• The individual has to be able to understand and embrace new forms of acceptance technology, including but not limited to mobile acceptance, and how best to leverage this technology with key acquiring banks, and acquiring partners across South Africa
• The candidate will be required to support in the South African Regulatory dialog and support Country Management, on all matters relating to National and Regional interests as it pertains to interchange and the impact on the merchant.
Key responsibilities
• Market Development Strategy for SA
• Acceptance Development Strategy for SA
• Acquirer business development for SA
• Merchant business development for SA
• Rollout of new Acceptance solutions in SA, including contactless, mobile and eCommerce
Accountabilities:
Look for new acceptance market opportunities within South Africa:
• Analyze business opportunities to increase volume and share. Implement both short and long term strategies and tactics to increase profitability.
• Implement Acceptance solutions that improve revenue generation and enhance mutual profitability
• Leverage all assets and product management resources to deliver exceptional merchant/acquirer value.
• In partnership with regional Market Development resources, contribute to developing market specific business plans through the provision of appropriate market intelligence and to take responsibility for the implementation of those plans.
• Prioritise work streams taking into account financial viability and time to market on projects.
• Project manage initiatives – from concept through to implementation
• Actively contribute to the SA Market Development efforts
Become a “trusted advisor” to SA Acquirers:
• Own all South Africa Acquiring relationships, in support of the Customer Relationship Manager who has overall ownership of an account
• Build senior level relationships at Head of Acquiring level with all major Acquirers and customers; providing detailed insights into their performance and identify key ; improvement levers for their business; and acting as a key influencer in regulatory discussions and industry bodies such as PASA;
• Build a detailed knowledge of all regulatory issues touching on the acquirer space, particularly cash back, acquiring standards/compliance, mobile, contactless and eCommerce
• Analyse business opportunities to increase volume and share. Implement both short and long term strategies and tactics to increase profitability.
• Implement Commerce Development solutions that improve revenue generation and enhance mutual profitability
• Leverage all assets and product management resources to deliver exceptional merchant / acquirer value.
Build SA Merchant relationships:
• Identify key merchant relationships across South Africa territory;
• Build senior level relationships at COO/CEO level with key merchants; acting as a key influencer in regulatory discussions and industry bodies such as SARPIF;
• Build a detailed knowledge of all regulatory issues touching on the retailer space, particularly an “own brand” retailer payment scheme and interchange
• Responsible for business development of all South Africa Merchant relationships
• Analyze business opportunities to increase volume and share. Implement both short and long term strategies and tactics to increase profitability.
• Implement Commerce Development solutions that improve revenue generation and enhance mutual profitability
• Leverage all assets and product management resources to deliver exceptional merchant value.


• Visit key Merchants on a regular basis, expect to spend 50% of time out of office. Note that SA’s largest retailers and retailer bodies are located in Cape Town (a 2 hour flight from Johannesburg)
Act as the company’s representative in regulatory/external forums:
• Represent the company on/to all SA regulatory and industry bodies (e.g. PASA. SARB, SARPIF) in regards to Acceptance concerns and potentially wider issues
• Determine stance on key Acceptance concerns in market, e.g. pure cash back, and work with appropriate teams, regulatory bodies and customers to gain alignment at an industry level
• Take full ownership of any market level and customer level Acceptance issues and manage them to resolution, leveraging resources as appropriate
Continually improve Acceptance value proposition to market:
• Interpret and assess available MIS to identify opportunities for innovation
• Provide extensive acceptance expertise and knowledge into the market place
• Attend key industry bodies and regulatory discussions
• Speak at relevant conferences and industry forums
Requirements
• 10-15 years business experience, with 10+ years experience in the financial services / payments industries, ideally in an senior Acceptance role
• Deep business development and marketing experience
• Strong project management, problem solving, analytical and organizational experience
• Experience in merchant acquiring, retailing and / or corporate transactional banking will be advantageous
• Demonstrated experience in managing multiple stakeholders
• Excellent writing and presentation skills, extensive experience in communicating in international environment at senior management level
• Strong negotiation and influencing skills
• Organization and time management skills; ability to multi-task
• Exceptional business judgment and strategic planning skills
• Business Case development, including financial analytics
• Budget preparation and management
• Ability to work collaboratively
• Solid solution development skills and effective working both independently and in a team environment
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including presentation skills
• Personal traits: He or she must have the gravitas, good cards payment industry knowledge, possess strong influencing skills and good internal (working with our internal BD professionals) and external stakeholders (banks and retailers) management skill-sets.
Send your CV to Danelle at CA Global (danelle@caglobalint.com), or visit our website (www.banking-recruitment-jobs.com) for further information.
Note: Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted