Head of MIDAS - Digital Wallet Joint Venture

About the role

MIDAS is a strategic joint venture between MTN Group Fintech and Alipay, built to modernise MTN Fintech's digital financial services platform and support the deployment, stabilisation and operation of a new digital wallet ecosystem. As Head of MIDAS, you will lead the joint venture from its Dubai International Financial Centre holding company, with a China hub building the core platform and a Ghana hub migrating and running markets. The role is executive and accountable to the Board, and carries a shareholder dimension beyond a conventional subsidiary leadership position.

Key responsibilities

• Hold full executive accountability for building, deploying and operating the digital wallet platform on which MTN's fintech business will run for the next decade, including migrating fourteen operating companies from the legacy USSD environment.
• Lead an enterprise spread across three locations with three distinct mandates, keeping them as one delivery system without any location drifting into a second corporate centre.
• Operate under the constraint that MTN Group Fintech retains functional authority for product strategy, technology strategy, commercial accountability and enterprise prioritisation; strengthen Group Fintech's execution capacity while ensuring a single Group relationship for operating companies.
• Act as shareholder interface with the CFO, manage reserved matters and funding through the Midas Board, and protect the intellectual property perimeter.
• Make trade-offs between platform quality, migration pace, shareholder expectations and market readiness, defend them to the Board and reverse them when evidence changes.
• Guard the joint venture's reputation with regulators, operating company boards and customers, and uphold the standard of behaviour, disclosure and delivery.

Required profile

• Minimum 4-year tertiary degree in Engineering, Technology, Information Technology or a related discipline, plus a postgraduate qualification such as an MBA or equivalent.
• Minimum 15 years of experience across financial services, fintech, payments, telecommunications or platform technology, including at least 5 years at executive committee level.
• Proven accountability for a profit and loss, a major platform programme or a business unit of comparable scale and public visibility.
• Experience leading a joint venture, partnership or multi-shareholder entity, including board proceedings, reserved matters and shareholder negotiation.
• Experience of large-scale core system replacement or platform migration across multiple countries and regulatory regimes, and of operating across several jurisdictions and cultures, ideally including Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
• Track record of building and leading executive teams across distributed locations and attracting senior talent into new ventures.
• Experience of regulated financial services environments, supervisory authorities, commercial charging models with internal customers, rapid scaling and public representation.

An edge is given by executive development, corporate governance or directorship programmes, continuing professional development in digital payments, platform businesses or joint venture governance, and board or director-level governance training. Applications close on 03 November 2026; late applications will not be accepted.