Head of Network
Summary
Lead the expansion and optimization of Luo’s cross-border payment network in francophone Africa by managing partner relationships, negotiating terms, and building new payment rails.
About Luo
Luo is one of the fastest-growing FX and cross-border payments companies in Africa. We help African businesses pay their international suppliers faster, more transparently, and more competitively than traditional solutions. Behind that promise sits a network of collectors, banks, and FX brokers across francophone Africa. This role owns that network.
The role
Every payment we make depends on a chain of partners: collectors who take in funds from our customers, banks that hold our local accounts, and FX counterparties. Making that chain faster, more reliable, and more cost-effective is central to Luo's growth.
As Head of Network, you have two core mandates. First, you optimize the corridors we already run: compressing treasury delays, negotiating better terms, and turning partner relationships into real infrastructure. Second, you expand: opening new payment rails, and building the partnerships that let Luo move into new markets across Africa.
This is a commercial, operational, and structuring role in equal measure. It sits on the critical path of the company's economics and requires regular travel across the region.
What you'll do
Own partner relationships and commercial negotiations with collectors, banking partners; build the leverage map that tells you where to renegotiate, grow, or exit
Compress treasury and settlement delays across the full flow (customer to collector to bank to broker), set SLAs per partner, and work hands-on to fix the documentary and operational causes
Manage concentration risk and reduce over-dependence on any single partner group while protecting the corridors that work
Lead expansion into new countries and new payment rails: identify the right partners, negotiate entry terms, and build out the infrastructure from scratch
Operate with a high degree of autonomy on the ground, in close coordination with the CEO, treasury, and operations teams
What we're looking for
8+ years in banking, payments, treasury, correspondent banking, or PSP/mobile-money operations in francophone Africa, with a track record of managing and negotiating partner relationships
Deep, practical understanding of how funds move in the UEMOA (XOF) and CEMAC (XAF) zones: collectors, local banks, SWIFT messaging (MT103/MT900), correspondent flows, and settlement mechanics
A commercial operator who can sit across the table from a bank or collector and move terms, and then make the process work day to day
Comfortable with data: you can read a partner-performance dataset and turn it into priorities and a negotiation plan
Fluent French and professional English
Willing to travel regularly across the region