Senior Project Manager

Who is PawaPay

PawaPay is a pan-African fintech enabling local payment channels used by the mass market to both local and international merchants. We operate in a highly regulated, partner-driven environment and are in scale-up mode, with ambitious growth plans across multiple African markets.

Our vision is to simplify business for companies and consumers in Africa and we do that by ensuring that payments simply work, at scale, despite fragmentation and complexity that exists on the Continent.

Through our payments API we already facilitate over 4 million transactions a day across 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. We are the largest PSP on the Continent for the processing of mobile money payments, and have positioned ourselves well to lead the payment space as it grows over the next decade.

At PawaPay, there is an entrepreneurial spirit coupled with a modern and professional working culture. The fast-paced, ever-changing environment will suit someone who can adapt and think on their feet. In return, you will have the opportunity to work alongside a group of dedicated and smart individuals working towards the same mission. We work as a remote team and have team members in Europe, Africa and Asia.

The role

We are introducing a single, disciplined way of running cross-functional projects: clear ownership, one source of truth, and reliable visibility. This is the role that makes it work. You will own the delivery system across the business, intake, coordination, visibility, prioritisation support and escalation, while the teams who do the work retain ownership of their own projects.

This is deliberately a standalone senior role reporting to the COO. It is not the head of a Project Management Office and it is not the first hire of a growing PMO. There is no team to build and no governance bureaucracy to stand up. We are looking for a strong operator who runs a system and drives discipline, not an empire-builder. The core delivery workspace is in the process of being launched in ClickUp and an MVP will be in initial use when you join; your job is to run it, refine it, and make it indispensable, not to build it from a blank page.

What you are accountable for;

You are accountable for the integrity of the delivery system and for ensuring that no delivery risk reaches leadership without warning.

In practice, the principle is simple: no surprises, not no slips. Projects will slip, often for external reasons we do not control. If a project slips and leadership saw it coming and made a conscious call, you have done your job. If a project slips and it blindsides us, that is a failure of the role, whatever the underlying cause. You surface risk early and clearly; the authority to act on it sits with line managers and the executive.

You are not accountable for the delivery outcome of any individual project. Accountability for delivery is held at task level by the person who owns each task, and overall project ownership stays with the intake owner (Sales Executive, Account Manager or Functional Lead). You are the framework and the safety net, not a substitute driver.

What you own day to day

What you do not own

To keep the role sharp, it is as important to be clear on what sits outside it:

How the role is measured

You will be measured on the health of the delivery system and on early warning, not on outcomes you do not control. The primary measures are: