Lets Write Africa's Story Together!

Old Mutual is a firm believer in the African opportunity and our diverse talent reflects this.

Job Description

The role of the Head of Operations is a senior leadership role responsible for the overall operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and strategic management of the Omari business. Key duties include overseeing daily operations of the Omari business, managing stakeholder and partner relationships, and driving process improvements to ensure seamless customer experiences.

The role is responsible for defining, delivering and accountable for controls and compliance across the Omari business and working closely with functional Business Heads to ensure Management controls are managed effectively. The role is responsible for driving and implementing the Omari business operations function including the management of the back office, Anti-Money Laundering, processes, quality, system access, customer support and retention.

Responsibilities

Transaction Processing

Manage, execute, and monitor the daily flow of financial transactions, ensuring their accuracy, compliance, and timely settlement. This role is central to maintaining operational efficiency, minimizing risk, and ensuring a seamless experience for customers and partners.

Oversee the timely and accurate processing of all transaction types (e.g., payments, transfers, settlements) using relevant systems and platforms.

Perform daily, weekly, and monthly reconciliations of transactions and accounts to identify and resolve any discrepancies or errors.

Ensure all processing activities adhere to internal policies, industry regulations (e.g., AML), and audit standards. Monitoring transactions for potential fraud or suspicious activity.

Investigate and resolve transaction-related issues, errors, or customer queries promptly and efficiently.

Identify inefficiencies in current workflows and implementing process enhancements to improve speed, accuracy, and scalability.

Generate reports on transaction volumes, status, errors, and performance metrics for management review.

Customer Experience and Operations

Lead the end-to-end support ecosystem for all stakeholders, ensuring that customers, agents, merchants, and partners receive high-quality, timely, and efficient service. This role is responsible for bridging the gap between technical operations and user satisfaction, driving brand loyalty, and ensuring the stability of the mobile money network.

Oversee the service desk and contact center operations (Voice, SMS, App, Social Media) to provide 24/7 support for end-users and business partners.

Operationalise Agents liquidity support, technical troubleshooting for POS/apps, and commission inquiries.

Manage Merchants and Partners integration support, settlement queries, and dedicated account service.

Define, monitor, and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as First Contact Resolution (FCR), Average Handling Time (AHT), and Net Promoter Score (NPS). Act as the highest level of escalation for complex financial disputes, ensuring fair outcomes in line with consumer protection regulations.

Develop and maintain training manuals and FAQs for agents, customers and support staff to ensure consistent and accurate information is provided across all touchpoints.

Reporting

Design, implement, and maintain a comprehensive reporting framework that provides actionable insights into business performance, operational performance, financial reconciliation, and regulatory adherence. This role ensures that all internal and external stakeholders have accurate, timely, and relevant data to guide the mobile money business.

Track and analyse key performance indicators (KPIs) such as daily, monthly and year to date transaction volumes and values, customer activity and transaction success rates.

Prepare and submitting mandatory reports to the central bank and financial intelligence unit, focusing on Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) due diligence, and suspicious activity reports.

Generate daily reconciliation reports to ensure that movement of funds between mobile wallets and trust accounts is accurate and that all settlements with merchants and partners are completed.

Report on service level agreements (SLAs) and customer satisfaction metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and CSAT to identify friction points in the user journey.

Develop exception reports and real-time alerts to flag unusual transaction patterns, potential system failures, or security breaches.

Reconciliations

Enforce a daily "Zero-Balance" reconciliation policy between the Mobile Money platform, Bank Trust Accounts, and Partners’ ledgers.

Manage the settlement desk to ensure agents, merchants and aggregators are paid accurately and within agreed T+0 or T+1 timelines.

Lead the investigation and resolution of "financial breaks," failed transactions, and manual adjustments.

Perform EOD (End of Day) to ensure that the sum of all individual wallet balances equals the total balance in the trust account.

Monitor the electronic value in real-time to ensure that the business never over-issues electronic value beyond the physical cash held in the bank.

O&M, Process improvement and Process management

Oversee daily operations and maintenance monitoring of the entire Omari ecosystem (App, USSD, API gateways, core banking links) to ensure maximum availability and performance.

Lead the response to all operational incidents, coordinating cross-functional teams for rapid resolution (MTTR reduction), root cause analysis (RCA), and preventative action.

Coordinate system maintenance windows, upgrades, and patch deployments with IT and product teams to minimize customer impact.

Design, write, and maintain a centralized library of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all operational tasks, ensuring clarity and compliance.

Map end-to-end operational workflows (e.g., customer, agent, merchant onboarding, dispute resolution, agent liquidity management) to identify bottlenecks and hand-off issues.

Implement a robust framework for process adherence, conducting regular audits to ensure teams are following established procedures.

Champion a culture of continuous improvement, applying methodologies to eliminate waste, reduce variance, and streamline core financial processes.

Identify high-volume, manual tasks (especially in reconciliations and data entry) and collaborate with IT/RPA teams to implement automated solutions.

Manage the operational change lifecycle, ensuring all teams are trained and ready for new processes or product launches before they go live

Risk and Compliance

Safeguard the Omari ecosystem by identifying, mitigating, and monitoring all forms of risk—including financial, operational, and regulatory. This role ensures the business operates strictly within the laws of the central bank and international financial standards (FATF) while maintaining robust anti-fraud and consumer protection frameworks.

Oversee the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CFT) programs.

Define and audit the Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) processes to ensure all users and merchants are properly verified before accessing the platform.

Develop and implement real-time fraud prevention strategies (e.g., SIM-swap fraud detection, social engineering alerts, and transaction velocity limits).

Conduct regular Risk & Control Self-Assessments (RCSA) to identify vulnerabilities in internal processes, from cash handling to IT access.

AML/CFT Management

Implement and manage robust systems and procedures that detect, investigate, and report suspicious financial activities, ensuring full compliance with national and international Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT) regulations.

Oversee the Know Your Customer (KYC) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) processes. Ensure that all customer and channel partner onboarding and verification procedures are rigorous, up-to-date, and compliant with regulatory standards.

Conduct periodic risk assessments to identify emerging threats (e.g., new fraud typologies). Develop, update, and enforce internal AML policies and procedures in line with the latest regulatory guidance.

Deliver mandatory AML training programs to all employees and agents to ensure a culture of compliance and vigilance across the organization.

Issuing and Acquiring Operations

Manage the end-to-end operational lifecycle of all Omari-branded payment cards and the acceptance of all card-based payments across physical (POS), mobile, and e-commerce channels. This role ensures operational efficiency, compliance with card scheme regulations (Visa/Mastercard/Zimswitch), and a superior experience for both cardholders and merchants.

Manage card operations for all Omari issued cards, acquiring for POS , Mobile and Ecommerce transactions.

Oversee the entire card issuance process, including production, personalization, inventory management (stock levels of cards and PINs), and secure distribution to customers/agents.

Manage the processing of card applications and data entry into the Card Management System (CMS), ensuring accuracy and adherence to Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policies.

Handle escalated customer inquiries related to card activation, PIN management, lost or stolen cards, and general usage issues.

Ensure strict adherence to security protocols like PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and regulatory standards related to cardholder data protection.

Perform daily, weekly, and monthly reconciliation of all card transactions and settlements with local and international schemes, ensuring accurate commission and balance calculations.

Oversee the handling of customer disputes and chargeback processes, ensuring timely resolution and compliance with scheme rules.

Continuously evaluate and improve card issuance and merchant acquiring processes to enhance efficiency, customer experience, and reduce operational losses

Business Continuity Management

Serve as the primary custodian of the business ecosystem’s operational integrity. This role is responsible for the seamless execution of millions of daily transactions, the financial accuracy of all balances (Reconciliations), the resilience of the technology stack (Platform Ops & BCM).

Ensure that the business ecosystem—including millions of real-time transactions, agent liquidity, and merchant settlements remains functional during catastrophic events and ensure that a total system failure, a major cyber-breach, or a regional disaster does not result in financial loss or a breach of the minutes-level Recovery Time Objective (RTO).

Develop and test the Enterprise Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to ensure the platform can recover from cyber-attacks or natural disasters within minutes (RTO).

Collaborate with Platform Ops to design "Active-Active" data centre configurations, ensuring that if one site fails, the mobile money platform remains live without manual intervention.

Audit the BCP capabilities of critical partners (platform providers, SMS gateways, and Banks). Ensure that a failure at a partner level does not paralyze the Omari ecosystem.

Training

Develop and implement a comprehensive staff, agents and merchants training on cash handling procedures, Agent line usage, anti-money laundering (AML) red flags, and customer experience standards.

Ensure all staff receive mandatory, tracked training on Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC), Consumer Protection, and data privacy regulations.

Measure the effectiveness of training programs using KPIs such as reduced errors, increased agent efficiency, and improved customer satisfaction scores (CSAT/NPS).

Product Configurations & Support

Oversee the products configuration of all products, including fee structures, commissions, and transaction limits, ensuring zero financial leaks.

Monitor and optimize Transaction Per Second (TPS) capacity and latency. Ensure the platform scales automatically during peak periods (e.g., payday or holidays).

Design and test Disaster Recovery (DR) protocols. Ensure that in the event of a primary site failure, the platform can failover to a secondary site with near-zero RTO (Recovery Time Objective).

Stakeholder Management

Safeguard the organisation's license to operate by building robust, transparent, and proactive relationships with regulatory bodies (Central Bank/RBZ, FIU) and strategic partners (Visa, Zimswitch). This role ensures operational compliance, manages regulatory risk, and positions the company as a trusted, resilient market leader.

Serve as the primary point of contact for the Central Bank and Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). Manage all regulatory filings, license renewals, and onsite audits. Serve as the authorized representative for all operational and compliance matters with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

Orchestrate and manage all onsite audits by the RBZ and or FIU, coordinating data requests from business, operations, finance, and IT teams, and managing the audit responses.

Team Leadership 

Lead, coach, and mentor operations teams, fostering a culture of excellence and accountability. Conduct performance reviews and identify training and development needs for staff.

Define and embed the "Operational DNA"—a mindset focused on zero-error rates, rapid recovery, and radical transparency.

Organize the department into cross-functional "Squads" to reduce silos and speed up problem-solving.

Actively build a diverse team to ensure varying perspectives in risk assessment and customer experience design.

Skills

Action Planning, Backlog Management, Change Management, Data Compilation, Executing Plans, Legal Practices, Occupational Safety and Health, Oral Communications, Organizational Design, Policies & Procedures, Professional Presentation, Project Budget Management, Project Delivery Management, Readiness Assessments

Competencies

Builds Effective Teams

Communicates Effectively

Customer Focus

Directs Work

Drives Engagement

Drives Results

Ensures Accountability

Financial Acumen

Education

Bachelor Of Business Management

Closing Date

26 January 2026 , 23:59

The Old Mutual Story!