Head Of Product - Platforms

Head Of Product, Platform

Kuda is a money app for Africans on a mission to make financial services accessible, affordable and rewarding for every African on the planet. We're a tribe of passionate and diverse people who dreamed of building an inclusive money app that Africans would love so it's only right that we ended up with the name 'Kuda' which means 'love' in Shona, a language spoken in the southern part of Africa. We're giving Africans around the world a better alternative to traditional finance by delivering money transfers, smart budgeting and instant access to credit through digital devices. We've raised over $90 million from some of the world's most respected institutional investors, and we're rolling out our game-changing services globally from our offices in Nigeria, South Africa, and the UK.

Role Overview The Head of Product, Platform will lead the Platform tribe at Kuda, overseeing Core Banking, Payments & Cards, and Internal Tooling. This tribe powers the reliability, scalability, and compliance of Kuda's infrastructure — enabling all product tribes to deliver customer-facing innovation.

You will own the tribe's strategy, roadmap, and delivery, ensuring that platform investments translate into measurable business efficiency, regulatory readiness, and improved delivery velocity across the organisation.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategy & Roadmap

• Define and own the Platform tribe strategy and roadmap, integrating business goals, regulatory needs, and market dynamics.
• Prioritise investments that improve system reliability, cost efficiency, and scalability while enabling new business opportunities.
• Set and communicate SMART goals (OKRs) to align teams and stakeholders.

2. Delivery & Execution

• Lead tribe planning and QBRs, managing alignment and dependencies across tribes.
• Champion thin-slice, iterative delivery with measurable impact.
• Provide proactive visibility to leadership and stakeholders on roadmap progress, risks, and key decisions.

3. Reliability, Scalability & Compliance

• Establish standards for system reliability, uptime, and performance, tracking SLA targets.
• Ensure compliance with card scheme rules, payment regulations, and data protection requirements.
• Drive automation and tooling that reduce operational friction and enhance efficiency.

4. Analytics & Financial Impact

• Use financial analytics to optimise ROI, cost-to-serve, and scalability.
• Analyse vendor costs, transaction volumes, reconciliation gaps, and efficiency gains to inform priorities.
• Apply cohort analysis to identify internal adoption trends and guide smarter platform investment.

5. People Leadership & Influence

• Hire, coach, and develop Product Managers with strong infrastructure and financial services instincts.
• Influence stakeholders by simplifying complex technical concepts into clear business narratives.
• Foster an inclusive, collaborative culture where teams feel empowered to contribute and own outcomes.

6. Change Leadership

• Lead structural enhancements to Kuda's infrastructure that benefit multiple business areas.
• Oversee transformation initiatives in core processes (ledger, payments, tooling) to increase efficiency.
• Act as a role model for learning, continuous improvement, and accountability.

Day-to-Day Collaboration

• With BLO (Platform): align on efficiency, uptime, and cost-reduction objectives.
• With DM/TLs: plan capacity, define SLAs, and deliver roadmap initiatives.
• With Other Tribes: manage dependencies for payment flows, ledger, and tooling access.
• With Risk, Compliance, Legal, Finance: ensure audit readiness, reconciliation integrity, and regulatory compliance.
• With Vendors: manage partnerships, SLAs, and integrations with card schemes, processors, and banking providers.