Commercial Manager at Kuunda 3D

Role Purpose 

• To drive Kuunda’s commercial expansion across Africa by leading strategic business development, structuring complex commercial partnerships, and managing contractual workflows from early engagement through launch and beyond.
• This role is central to building Kuunda’s ecosystem of banks, telcos, fintechs, platforms, and financial institutions, while coordinating closely with in-country teams and cross-functional stakeholders. The Commercial Manager – Africa converts strategic opportunities into structured, executable, and scalable partnerships aligned with Kuunda’s product and growth strategy.

Key Responsibilities (Core Focus)
Partner Contracting & Commercial Structuring

• Own the end-to-end commercial negotiation & contracting journey with strategic partners - from early scoping and due diligence through drafting, negotiation, execution, and amendments. This will involve a strong working knowledge of complex contract execution (with limited legal counsel support), and a deep understand of Kuunda's commercial case formulations, validations and forecasting.
  • Lead creation and review of legal and commercial documentation including NDAs, SLAs, due diligence packs, addendums, and partnership agreements in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders.
  • Orchestrate cross-functional input across product, scoring, tech, finance, compliance, risk, and IT teams to ensure contracts and commercial agreements reflect operational, regulatory, and technical realities.
  • Identify and resolve contractual and commercial bottlenecks related to pricing, SLAs, risk allocation, funding structures, and operational scope.
  • Develop and maintain strong working relationships with partner legal, compliance, commercial, and operations teams to build trust and ensure long-term alignment.

 Strategic Business Development & Relationship Management

• Lead the identification, prioritization, and development of new commercial opportunities with banks, MNOs/MMOs, fintechs, platforms, and other strategic partners across Kuunda’s focus markets.
  • Own senior-level partner engagement from initial discussions through commercial alignment, positioning Kuunda’s embedded finance and digital credit solutions effectively.
  • Work closely with in-country teams to leverage local market context, relationships, and regulatory insight, while retaining overall ownership of the opportunity and BD process.
  • Coordinate cross-functional collaboration (data, product, credit, finance, compliance, IT) to assess feasibility, shape partnership models, and develop commercially sound structures.
  • Develop tailored partner engagement strategies that address specific partner priorities around revenue-sharing, risk-sharing, growth, and revenue optimization.
  • Lead the preparation and delivery of commercial proposals, business cases, and partnership presentations.
  • Serve as Kuunda’s primary commercial lead in strategic discussions, ensuring clear articulation of Kuunda’s value proposition and partnership framework.

Preferred / Value-Add Responsibility

Strategic Funding & Soft Capital Mobilization

• Develop and manage a pipeline of catalytic capital opportunities including grants, challenge funds, guarantees, and concessional funding aligned with Kuunda’s expansion strategy.
  • Support the preparation of concept notes, technical proposals, budgets, and monitoring & evaluation frameworks that position Kuunda’s products as fundable financial inclusion solutions.
  • Build relationships with donors, foundations, DFIs, and CSR initiatives to strengthen Kuunda’s ability to blend soft capital with commercial expansion.
    Contribute to negotiations with funding institutions to structure support that de-risks market entry and accelerates scale.

Core Experience & Skills

• Strong experience in commercial partnerships, business development, or strategic alliances within financial services, fintech, digital lending, or embedded finance.
• Demonstrated ability to structure and negotiate complex commercial agreements involving balance sheet providers (Commercial banks, MFIs and NBFIs) , MNOs, fintechs, or platform partners.
• Experience working across multiple African markets and navigating diverse regulatory and ecosystem environments.
• Ability to coordinate cross-functional stakeholders (product, data, tech, finance, risk, compliance) to move opportunities from concept to execution-ready stage.
• Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to build business cases and align partnership structures with product and risk realities.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, comfortable engaging senior external partners.
• Ability to travel to other markets (30%-50%) each month.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience engaging with donors, DFIs, or catalytic capital providers in support of financial inclusion or digital finance initiatives.
• Fluency in French (spoken and written) and/or Arabic (spoken), particularly for engagement in Francophone African and MENAP markets.

Key Outcomes

• The Commercial Manager – Africa builds and progresses a strong pipeline of strategic partnerships across priority African markets.
• Commercial opportunities are led proactively from origination through structuring and into execution-ready agreements.
• Cross-functional teams are effectively coordinated to deliver commercially sound, operationally viable partnership models.
• Kuunda strengthens its position as a trusted embedded finance partner to banks, telcos, platforms, and — where relevant — funding institutions.