Head of Business Operations & Customer Success

Why This Role Matters:

Your team will serve as the bridge between Finexus and our clients, ensuring post-live satisfaction while driving operational support excellence. As Head of Business Operations & Customer Success, you will combine strategic client management with hands-on leadership of the Business Ops and Customer Success teams.

About the Role

You will carry end-to-end operational ownership across Payments Operations, Merchant Services, the Contact Centre, and Operations Reporting & Support, in addition to Loan Operations and the Customer Success mandate detailed below.

Mission / Expected Outcomes:

• Scale operational capacity primarily through automation and AI, not through headcount growth.
• Build and run a centralised L1 Support Desk across all relevant Finexus products, with a dedicated Customer Success/Account Manager team for Cardworks enterprise clients.
• Own end-to-end delivery for Loan Operations, and the BPO budget and headcount.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for clients, resolving critical, time-sensitive operational issues.
• Meet the department's shared success metrics, including 90% overall CSAT, 95% Customer Review completion, 99.95% application availability, and a 95% first-response SLA within 1 business hour.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Department Strategy, Leadership & Development

• Develop and implement a department strategy aligned with company OKRs, incorporating industry trends, emerging technologies, automation, and best practices; provide insights and recommendations to senior management.
• Ensure operational compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and industry standards, and maintain business continuity plans to ensure uninterrupted service delivery.
• Establish and uphold documentation standards that meet Finexus policies on quality, efficiency, and regulatory compliance, including onboarding materials and knowledge transfer documentation.
• Build and oversee the department such that it operates autonomously in the Head's absence; lead, mentor, and develop the team through performance reviews, coaching, and regular feedback.
• Drive staff development, morale, and performance through ongoing guidance, training, and a culture of high initiative and accountability.

2. Client & Stakeholder Satisfaction

• Serve as the primary escalation point for customers and clients; ensure timely, effective resolution of issues across all supported Finexus products.
• Establish, own, and continuously improve the L1 Support Desk to deliver consistent, quality client support across all relevant products and touchpoints.
• Define and implement a customer satisfaction measurement framework; analyse data regularly to identify trends, gaps, and improvement opportunities, and report findings to senior management.
• Conduct regular client reviews to assess performance, address concerns, and identify improvements; maintain strong working relationships with clients, vendors, suppliers, and internal departments including Product Heads and Business Owners.
• Drive a customer-first culture within the team, collecting and acting on feedback to maximise satisfaction, improve retention, and ensure operational support on new system initiatives is delivered on time.

3. Operational Excellence

• Ensure department operations are efficient, cost-effective, and consistently meet or exceed SLAs.
• Establish, monitor, and report on KPIs and service standards to drive internal and external customer satisfaction.
• Identify and mitigate operational risks to minimise service disruptions.
• Act as the hands-on escalation owner for critical, time-sensitive operational issues — e.g. fraud incidents, authorisation outages, settlement or reconciliation breaks, and high-impact chargeback disputes — personally driving resolution alongside the team.

4. Financial & Budget Management

• Manage the BPO budget and headcount, including forecasting, expense tracking, and resource planning.
• Identify cost-saving opportunities while maintaining or improving productivity.
• Prepare and present financial reports to senior management.

Products & Systems in Scope:

• Payments Operations, Merchant Services, the Contact Centre, and Operations Reporting & Support.
• Loan Operations — end-to-end business operations and administrative workflow for loan processing.
• L1 Support Desk coverage: AREMA, Kayaaku, Cardworks, and FINTANI, with a roadmap to extend to existing and new products.
• Cardworks enterprise accounts — supported by a dedicated Customer Success/Account Manager team, as the L1 helpdesk is too junior/general for this segment.

Qualifications:

Experience & Track Record

• Enterprise client management — comfortable owning high-touch, complex client relationships and acting as the final escalation point.
• Support function build-out experience — has stood up or scaled an L1/tiered support desk model from scratch.
• Large team, cross-functional leadership — able to absorb a consolidated org with multiple reporting lines merging in, and tighten accountability without losing delivery pace.
• Fintech / lending domain fluency — direct exposure to loan operations, lending workflows, or regulated financial operations.

Skills & Approach

• Automation-first operator mindset — track record of using AI and automation to streamline manual work and cost, rather than scaling through headcount.
• Strategy-to-execution balance — credible setting OKRs and SLAs at a strategic level while staying hands-on operationally.

Mindset & Culture

• Culture carrier for customer-first orientation — has demonstrably built or reinforced a customer-first culture in a prior Ops or CS leadership seat.