Philippines Country Manager (Expansion Lead)

We’re looking for a Philippines Country Manager / Expansion Lead to lead our expansion efforts in the Philippines. The Philippines is a growing and important market for Wise and your success will mean helping millions more potential customers to save money by using our services. 

This is not your typical business development or relationship role. You will oversee the Philippines market overall and will work with other teams at Wise to launch, run and scale our services and business operations. Over time, you will have full responsibility for overseeing our financial services partnerships, figuring out new products or deepening opportunities, and executing on it, and managing critical relationships with government departments, regulators and banking partners. 

What will you be doing?

• Work with the product team on new product launches and features development to address the customers needs. You will be one of the product team’s go-to people for regulatory and local market knowledge, and will lead coordinated efforts of rolling out the products with other teams at Wise.
• Overtime, build and maintain strong partnerships with financial institutions (banks, payment companies, card schemes) in the Philippines. You will lead commercial negotiations, pitch Wise as a client, complete due diligence processes, maintain strong and active relationships with partners, and ensure the technical teams have what they need to integrate with the partners. You will also identify the best partnership arrangement to support Wise business expansion.
• Work with relevant teams at Wise to build or set up relevant functions needed for scalable business and operation in the Philippines – and eventually being on top of relevant teams progresses and challenges in relation to the market and and help them problem solve. You will also help setup good governance structure for good business conduct in the Philippines.
• Together with the compliance team, understand existing and new regulations, figuring out the best way in which our product and setup are compliant with them. We see regulation as an opportunity, and we need you to help us achieve our Mission! 
• Manage the relationship with regulators and other important stakeholders in the market, such as with the government, central bank, FIU, industry association, and media.
• Identify new growth opportunities in the wider region. If we need new licences, you will need to manage the process end-to-end: understand the regulations, prepare relevant documents or materials, coordinate and submit the application, and get the regulatory buy-in.

A bit about you:

• Residing in the Philippines or willing to relocate to the Philippines.
• Fluent in English – speaking Filipino is a plus, but not required
• Experienced in the payment space (EMI or remittance industry), either from the regulatory side or from the industry. Bonus points if you have completed a license application in the payment industry. 
• Having a good understanding of payments, FX and AML regulations in the Philippines and comfortable at navigating AML/KYC and risk controls.
• Experienced in building business relationships with financial institutions, and dealing with risk/compliance teams within these institutions. 
• An analytical thinker. You are able to break down problems to its components, gathering the necessary information or data, identify step-by-step solutions or plans, and effectively communicate that to your stakeholders.
• Excellent at managing external relationships (regulators and financial institutions)
• Happy to work independently and be a self starter. At the same time, we seek someone who’s great at teamwork and able to work collaboratively with other teams to achieve our goal.
• Passionate about transforming the financial industry for good.
• You are willing to travel to our Singapore or other Wise offices as needed.

Your mission:

• Launch and run our service in the Philippines – You will roll your sleeves and work with multiple teams on launching our services in the Philippines market. Through your expertise on the market and its regulation, you will be a key player of this project and help the rest of the teams prepare and build a product that fits the market and customers. You will also oversee that the launched services run smoothly and are able to scale with business growth.
• Manage financial service partnerships – Maintain and improve relationships with financial institutions (banks, payment companies, card schemes) and lead commercial negotiations to drive down costs. You will monitor our economics to ensure that our service is competitive and support the team on integrating to the local partner.
• Lead strategic initiatives related to wider expansion plan- You will identify new / relevant local ways to benefit customers (such as a new local payment method or a new product feature) and build on it. You will also grow our new product offerings by identifying and pitching to relevant businesses in your target markets. Understanding how our product works will be key to finding these new opportunities.

Own strategic stakeholders relationships. You will be the face of Wise in the Philippines, hence you will build and improve relationships with strategic stakeholders, such as with the BSP, AMLC, PPMI and fintech association or industry – whose purpose is to help us grow our business through collaborations with these stakeholders.

This role will give you the opportunity to:

• Choose your own path to success – you’ll have the freedom to define the vision and the responsibility for making it happen
• Gain international exposure –  you will work with our teams in offices around the world as well as learn from our experience in other markets. There will also be opportunities for you to work for other markets in Southeast Asia if you’re up for the challenge
• Be a part of starting something new by helping launch new Wise products and become a key factor that determines its success

What do we offer: 

• Salary range (annual) : 4,200,000 – 5,300,000 PHPs per annum depending on interview performance + RSUs 
• Company Restricted Stock Units

Key benefits:

• Flexible working – whether it’s working from home, school plays or life admin we get that flexibility is essential and you’re trusted to do the right thing and be responsible
• Paid annual holiday, sick days, parental leave and other leave opportunities
• 6 weeks of paid sabbatical after 4 years at Wise on top of annual leave

If you’re interested in the position, please apply by submitting your CV and Cover Letter. 

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