Head of Risk, Eastern Africa (Payments)

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; hybrid work with office attendance expectations confirmed by the hiring manager

Company

hirify.global is a global payments technology company facilitating transactions among consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories.

What you will do

• Lead end-to-end risk engagement across Eastern Africa, covering fraud, scams, cybersecurity, data security, credit and settlement risk, third-party risk, regulatory risk, and ecosystem integrity.
• Translate market intelligence, payment-flow analysis, fraud trends, and emerging-risk developments into cluster-level priorities and practical business actions.
• Partner with business, product, legal, compliance, technology, operations, clients, fintechs, mobile money operators, merchants, and regulators to enable controlled growth and safe launches.
• Advise clients and ecosystem participants through executive risk reviews, risk councils, training, remediation planning, and control improvement initiatives.
• Coordinate responses to significant fraud events, data compromises, regulatory escalations, and client control failures, including escalation, communication, and sustainable remediation.
• Provide executive risk reporting, dashboards, marketplace feedback, governance updates, and oversight of assigned budgets and resources.

Requirements

• At least 10 years of relevant experience in payments, financial services, technology, risk management, fraud, compliance, regulation, cybersecurity, operations, or related fields.
• Experience operating across complex, multi-country markets and stakeholder groups, with practical knowledge of digital payments, issuing, acquiring, fintech, mobile money, cross-border flows, and emerging payment technologies.
• Experience identifying, evaluating, and mitigating significant payment risks, including fraud, scams, cyber-enabled crime, data compromise, authentication, disputes, transaction monitoring, AML and sanctions considerations, and ecosystem integrity.
• Experience improving risk controls through assessments, remediation planning, risk reporting, client due diligence, portfolio risk management, or third-party risk oversight.
• Ability to use data, analytics, market intelligence, and client performance indicators to identify risk patterns and communicate actionable insights.
• Degree from a recognized university; strong executive communication, stakeholder management, judgment, resilience, and influence without direct authority are required.

Nice to have

• Eastern Africa market experience, emerging-market payments exposure, or experience with mobile-first digital payment ecosystems.
• Postgraduate qualifications.
• Experience with underwriting, credit lifecycle risk, commercial lending, merchant or SME onboarding, or acquiring risk.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on payment-risk challenges affecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions, governments, and fintechs across Eastern Africa.
• Collaborate across regional and global risk teams in a matrixed environment.
• Contribute to financial inclusion, digital trust, payment resilience, and secure business growth.
• Operate in a role combining strategic risk leadership, stakeholder engagement, data-driven analysis, crisis management, and emerging-technology oversight.