Business Development Lead, South Africa

About Paystack

Paystack helps businesses in Africa get paid by anyone from anywhere in the world. Thousands of businesses from fastgrowing startups to large enterprises use Paystack to power payments including Xero Qatar Airways and many more.

Founded in Nigeria and now active across multiple African markets Paystack is backed by Stripe and is building the payments infrastructure that will power growth across the South Africa we work with ambitious businesses across ecommerce fintech retail logistics and digital services.

About the Role

The Business Development Lead will own Paystacks Business Development and Account Management function in South Africa with a primary focus on driving enterprise growth.

This is a senior leadership role. You will be the specialised subject matter expert for enterprise revenue in South Africa.

You will set the commercial strategy build and lead a highperforming team and personally guide our most strategic opportunities and customer relationships. You will navigate complex multistakeholder sales cycles translate Paystacks evolving strategy into clear priorities for your function and ensure that South African enterprises see Paystack as a trusted advisor not just a vendor.

What Youll Be Responsible For

• Lead the SA BD & Account Management function
  Define the strategy operating model and targets for winning growing and retaining South Africas most important customers. Translate company strategy into clear actionable priorities and metrics for your team.
  
  
• Build and lead a highperforming team
  Hire develop and manage BD and Account Management managers and their teams. Set expectations coach through complex deals and create a culture of ownership collaboration and continuous learning.
  
  
• Own enterprise pipeline and forecast
  Devise annual plans with clear segment territory and vertical focus. Maintain an accurate pipeline and forecast multiple quarters ahead consistently hitting targets and earning trustedadvisor status with customers and leadership.
• Guide complex deal and account strategy
  Support managers on highstakes opportunities: multiproduct multistakeholder and multiyear deals. Help teams manage the sales cycle artfully understanding which levers to pull to move deals forward while protecting Paystacks longterm interests.
  
  
• Drive executivelevel customer engagement
  Build and maintain relationships with Clevel executives (CFO CTO COO CEO) at key accounts. Understand their business drivers deeply shape mutually beneficial deal structures and ensure Paystack is seen as a strategic partner.
  
  
• Champion product & technical excellence in the field
  Maintain strong product and technical fluency (APIs integrations payments architecture) and ensure your team does the same. Use this knowledge to articulate customer requirements internally and to cocreate solutions with Product and Engineering.
  
  
• Lead crossfunctional execution
  Frequently lead crossfunctional groups (Product Engineering Risk Support Legal Finance) through difficult decisions and tradeoffs to unlock customer value while upholding Paystacks risk and compliance standards.
  
  
• Model Paystacks mission and values
  Use Paystacks goals and values to guide decisions and communicate the why behind them. Help your org do the same and motivate teams to deliver against our mission to accelerate commerce across Africa.

Core Competencies for Success in this Role

The ideal candidate consistently demonstrates the following:

• Scope & Impact: Acts as the accountable leader for enterprise revenue in South Africa; decisions on businesscritical commercial matters are trusted and often final. Influences strategy and execution across multiple teams and leads other managers to deliver outcomes.
• Decision Making: Owns complex team and crossfunctional dynamics makes clear calls in ambiguous situations and stands behind those decisions while incorporating feedback.
• Communication & Collaboration: Communicates complex and evolving company strategy simply and persuasively. Aligns teams around priorities and frequently leads crossfunctional groups through challenging problems.
• Managerial Skills: Leads complex multidisciplinary teams and managers. Invests meaningfully in coaching performance management and succession planning.
• Pipeline Management: Plans and executes over a full fiscal year with robust account and territory plans and reasonably accurate forecasts several quarters ahead. Hits targets consistently.
• Product Knowledge & Technical Competence: Understands the business and technical drivers of customer requirements engages credibly at senior levels and reliably finds winwin deal opportunities for customers and Paystack.
• Sales Process Execution: Manages and reviews the sales process endtoend combining strong process discipline with an intuitive grasp of the levers that move deals. Shares knowledge proactively and is regarded internally as a subject matter expert.

What Were Looking For

• 10 years in enterprise business development sales or strategic account management with at least 4 years leading managers and teams in highgrowth B2B environments (fintech payments SaaS or financial services strongly preferred).
• Proven track record of owning a regional or segment P&L or revenue target and consistently meeting or exceeding aggressive goals.
• Demonstrated success leading complex multistakeholder enterprise deals and account strategies in South Africa; comfortable operating at Csuite level.
• Strong understanding of South Africas payments and digital commerce landscape or the ability to ramp quickly on local market dynamics regulation and competitive environment.
• High technical and product fluency - able to understand APIs integrations and payments architecture and to translate between business and technical stakeholders.
• Evidence of building scalable sales systems: territory design quota setting forecasting CRM discipline and sales playbooks.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with the ability to frame tradeoffs and decisions clearly for both internal and external audiences.
• Deep alignment with Paystacks mission and values and a track record of leading teams in a way that reflects those values in daytoday decisions.

Nice to Have

• Direct experience with payment gateways merchant acquiring or developerfocused fintech products.
• Existing seniorlevel relationships across South African enterprises in Paystackrelevant verticals.
• Familiarity with modern sales methodologies (e.g. MEDDIC Challenger) and revenue operations best practices.

Why Join Paystack

• High impact: You will shape the strategy team and playbook that defines how Paystack wins the South African enterprise market.
• Leadership scope: Lead managers and teams across BD and Account Management with significant influence on product and gotomarket decisions.
• Strong backing: Operate with the agility of a growthstage African fintech and the resources and network of Stripe.
• Growth and learning: Work alongside toptier colleagues across Africa and globally with meaningful opportunities for regional and global leadership.
• Competitive total rewards: Marketleading base compensation performancebased variable pay equity and comprehensive benefits.