Level: Head of Department
Reporting to: Chief Executive Officer
Location: Menlyn, Pretoria, in-office.
Service unit: Bob Pay
What you’ll do:
As Head of Bob Pay, you will own the growth and performance of Bob's payments business. You set the direction with the leadership team: turn it into a commercial plan, and lead the team that delivers it. Your job is to make it materially bigger, safer and more deeply woven into the Bob ecosystem.
Your day-to-day:
Business development and growth:
- Build and own the Bob Pay growth strategy: which merchant segments to win, how to reach them and what it takes to convert them.
- Lead merchant acquisition end to end, from pipeline and pricing through to onboarding, and personally own the largest merchant relationships.
- Grow transaction volume, value and revenue per merchant, treating the payment method mix as a commercial lever.
- Own the partner and channel roadmap, including Shopify, WooCommerce, the Bob Pay API and new channels still to be built.
- Bring a commercial case to every proposal, covering sizing, pricing, cost to serve and expected return.
Leadership and team build-out:
- Lead the Bob Pay team through the Operations Manager and the Technical Lead, setting clear goals and dealing with performance honestly and early.
- Build the team out as the business grows: define the roles, make the hires, and put credible succession in place for both direct reports.
- Grow capability rather than headcount, coaching your leads to run their own areas and own their decisions.
- Manage performance and conduct fairly and consistently, in line with Bob policy and South African labour legislation, involving People and Culture early.
- Represent the team to the CEO, Exco and the wider business, and set the standard for how Bob Pay works with everyone else.
Strategy and business acumen:
- Align the Bob Pay plan with group strategy and translate it into quarterly objectives the team can act on.
- Track and act on the numbers that matter: transaction value, revenue, merchant growth and retention, payment success rates, uptime and cost of processing.
- Contribute to Bob Pay budgeting and forecasting, and deliver against the plan agreed with the CEO and Finance.
- Watch the South African payments market, competitors and regulatory shifts, and adjust the plan rather than defend it.
Cross-Bob integration.
- Identify and land the commercial opportunities that exist only because Bob runs a marketplace, payments and logistics together.
- Work with Marketing, Finance, Technology and People and Culture so that the Bob Pay roadmap, pricing and go-to-market are properly supported across the group.
Regulatory, risk and compliance ownership
- Own Bob Pay's regulatory standing under the NPS Act, FICA, the Consumer Protection Act, POPIA, and card scheme and PCI DSS rules.
- Own the sponsoring bank, acquirer, scheme and industry body relationships, and deliver on the commitments made in them.
- Work with Compliance, Legal and Finance on merchant due diligence, fraud, chargebacks and settlement integrity.
- Make sure uptime and incident response meet merchant commitments, and that failures are closed out.
Qualifications:
- Essential: A tertiary qualification in Commerce, Business, Finance, Economics, Technology or a related field. A postgraduate business qualification is an advantage.
Experience
- 8+ years' experience in payments, fintech, banking or a closely related commercial environment, of which at least 3 years leading a team or a business unit.
- A proven track record of growing revenue and winning merchants, clients or partners, with the numbers to support it.
- Experience leading through other managers, including operational and technical leads, and building a team as a business scales.
- Exposure to the South African payments landscape, including card acquiring, EFT, PayShap, bank and scheme relationships and the associated regulatory obligations, is a strong advantage.
- Experience working with executives and boards, including preparing and defending plans, budgets and performance reporting.
Skills
- Business development: builds a pipeline, structures and prices a deal, and closes it, at merchant and partner level.
- Business acumen: comfortable with unit economics, pricing, margin and forecasting, and able to explain them in plain language.
- Leadership: sets direction, gives honest feedback, develops people, and handles performance matters fairly and promptly.
- Strategic thinking: turns group strategy into a practical plan, and knows what to stop as well as what to start.
- Technical fluency: understands payment flows, integrations and APIs well enough to challenge the Technical Lead without writing the code.
- Governance and risk: sound judgement on regulatory, fraud and reputational risk, and the discipline to escalate early.
- Communication and influence: credible with merchants, banks, regulators, the Exco and the Bob Pay team alike.
- Ownership: takes responsibility for outcomes, including the ones that go wrong.
Why you’ll love it here:
At Bob, you'll grow your career, take on new challenges, and make a real impact on our merchants, customers and partners. Join a transparent, inclusive team where your voice matters, enjoy a healthy work-life balance, and benefit from a supportive and passionate environment. Plus, great coffee and snacks to keep you going.
Is this role for you?
If you want to run a payments business rather than a function, and you are as comfortable in a merchant negotiation as you are in a performance conversation with a lead, this is the role for you. We're looking for someone who can set direction with the CEO, build and grow a team, keep us on the right side of a heavily regulated space, and hold ourselves to the numbers.
