Remote Director of People Partnerships (HRBP)

Our mission

We're making Africa the first cashless continent.

In 2017, over half the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had no bank account. That's for good reason—the fees are too high, the closest branch can be miles away, and nobody takes cards. Without access to financial institutions, people are forced to keep their savings under the mattress. Small business owners rely on lenders who charge extortionate rates. Parents spend hours waiting in line to pay school fees in cash.

We're solving this by building financial services that just work: no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don't always work, you can still send money with Wave. In 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. Now, we have millions of users across six countries and are growing fast.

Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent and that's where you come in.....

How You'll Help Us Achieve It

We’re hiring a Director of People Partnerships on our Unstoppable People team! The People team of Wave are distributed across Remote and Operating Country locations. The four pillars of our team are:

• People Operations & Analytics
• Talent
• People Partnership (HRBP, Learning & Development)
• Human Resources & Facilities Management
  
  

You’re an ideal candidate for this role if you’ve built HRBP teams in the past, have excellent soft skills and instincts and are experienced in organisational design.

You'll be responsible for building and managing our People Partnerships and Learning and Development functions and will work with several Wave leaders to give them an impeccable people experience.

In this role, you'll

Act as a “force multiplier” for operations teams by improving people processes and outcomes (such as team design, skills gaps, performance management, and succession planning). Your work should touch every intersection of an employee lifecycle.

• Help identify the need for new hires and partner with the Talent team and department’s leadership to write Job Descriptions.
• Ensure that all new hires have a strong and impactful onboarding experience.
• Review and help administer internal communications and OKR setting processes in teams (as needed, and in collaboration with department leadership).
• Support managers and employees in working through performance issues and improvement plans as well as opportunities for internal mobility.
• Build authentic relationships and collaborate closely with senior leadership every step of the way.
• Identify trends or patterns that could impact the wider business and recommend possible solutions.

Bring greater clarity and definition to the People Partnership function at Wave.

• Periodically write and revise level definitions for the People Partner and L&D roles, review and improve Job Descriptions, and implement playbooks.
• Coach and mentor our existing People Partners.
• Sync with senior leaders, to understand their HR pain points and what they need from their People partners.

Set the direction for the People Partner and Learning and Development teams (set a roadmap for People Partnership).

• Write Cycle Letters describing vision for how Wave’s People Partnership and Learning and Development teams can help managers and employees grow themselves and the business.
• Monitor team OKRs closely and evaluate progress every cycle.

In collaboration with all stakeholders, own or coordinate major team changes (e.g new hires, changes to compensation and re-organizations).

• All of these team changes will require extensive collaboration with leaders across the company (e.g; Legal, Talent, HR tech, Payroll, Finance, Public Relations) however, the Director of People Partnerships (and the People Partners themselves) should be responsible for making sure the business achieves its goals.

Run Performance Management models - ensure that Wave is running effective performance reviews every six months by overseeing calibration sessions, providing input into reward decisions, and ensuring that level definitions are clear, useful, and consistently applied.

Develop action plans every 6 months following an Employee Engagement Survey.

Ensure that internal communication happens effectively and in accordance with Wave’s culture through team meetings, 11s, Slack channels, and other mechanisms.

Review and improve our Next Wave Mentorship program and suggest additional investments or programs we can pursue to further develop Wave’s leaders.

Key details

• If you are based in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali or Burkina Faso you will work from our offices, with 30% travels across the West African sub-region. We also welcome applications from candidates outside of these locations in Africa or Europe, who are willing to travel frequently, or preferably relocate to any of our operating countries.
• If not already based there, you will visit one of our major operating markets, ideally within 1 month of joining.
• Our salaries are competitive and calculated using a transparent formula, plus a generous equity package.
• We run performance reviews twice a year and award bonuses to strong performers who have been with the company for more than 6 months.
• We offer generous health insurance for yourself and your dependents.
• We help you live your fullest life now - we subsidize gym memberships and fitness classes.
• We support working parents - we offer generous parental leave.
  

Requirements

• A degree in Business Administration, Human Resources, or equivalent.
• 10+ years of solid HR experience in an international environment with a focus on HRBP or People Partnership.
• French and English proficiency.
• Experience building performance management models.
• Knowledge of practical Business Partnering models in Africa and able to manage a HRBP team through expansion and new rollout of functions.
• Demonstrated background in talent and leadership management, as well as a proven ability to attract and retain outstanding talent and motivate high-performing teams.
• Hands-on operational experience in managing employee relations.
• Ability to work with a variety of organizational leaders, to build consensus around HR strategy and tactics.
• Excellent negotiation and conflict resolution skills in dealing with sensitive employee issues and managing cultural differences.
  
  

You might be a good fit if you

• Obsess over the details and think deeply about solutions to problems.
• Have managed HR, Recruiting or L&D teams.
• You are comfortable with data sets, databases, and reporting performance indicators.
• Are an effective collaborator and have solid stakeholder engagement skills.
• Are a process thinker and doer who is used to designing standard operating procedures and can improve the timeliness of our HR administrative work.
• Have excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Are a people-person! You love supporting and coaching senior leadership, HR team members and understand that people are our greatest asset.
• Have a ‘can do’ attitude, are scrappy and very flexible.
• Are open, honest, and have high integrity.
• Been in a hybrid or remote role in the past.
• Have strong analytical skills.
  
  

Our team

• We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, and Uganda, plus remote team members spread across the world.
• We're deeply passionate about our mission of bringing radically affordable financial services to the people who need them most.
• We foster autonomy for our employees. You'll own your projects at every stage, from understanding the problem to monitoring your solution in production.
• We raised the largest Series A in Africa in 2021. Our world-class investors, include Founders Fund, Sequoia Heritage, Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and Partech Africa.
• In 2023, we were on .
  
  

How to apply

Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English and a cover letter describing your interest in Wave and the role.

We review applications frequently and recommend that you apply to the role that most closely aligns with your skills, experience and career goals.

Wave is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Please note that Wave is not actively hiring in the U.S. at this time. Therefore, applications submitted by U.S.-based applicants will not be reviewed by our Talent team. We encourage all U.S.-based applicants to keep an eye on our Careers page for updates, as we will provide notifications once we resume hiring in the U.S.