Business Development Lead, Nigeria

**About Caliza**

Caliza is commercial banking infrastructure for companies that operate across borders. Most global businesses still piece together several banks, FX providers and spreadsheets to move money. Caliza replaces that with one platform and API: hold USD accounts, collect and pay in 33+ currencies, and convert between fiat and stablecoins, over local rails, SWIFT or stablecoins, in minutes instead of days. On top of that, we’re building the treasury layer: programmable accounts, approval policies, automated reconciliation and working capital, run by a customer’s finance team or their AI agents.

Our customers are importers, exporters, FX brokers, payment companies and fintechs across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. We’re licensed and regulated across our core markets, and our team has built financial infrastructure at Visa, Nubank, EBANX, Flutterwave, Upstart, Intuit and Silicon Valley Bank.

**Our backers**

Initialized Capital, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Abstract Ventures, New Form Capital, QED Investors, Valor Capital and Quona Capital, along with the founders of Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, Rappi, Pomelo, Dock, Remesa Online and Anchorage.

**About the role**

You will launch and grow Caliza's business across Africa, starting in Nigeria. You will own the regional revenue target, build the pipeline from day one, and close the PSPs, fintechs, remittance companies, and trade businesses that move money between Africa, the US, Latin America, and Asia. You will report to the Director of Business Development, work closely with the CEO, and partner with Compliance, Product, Legal, and Operations to get customers live quickly and safely.

What you'll do

• Own the Africa territory. Core market: Nigeria. Expansion markets: Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. Key corridors: Africa–US, Africa–China, Africa–Europe and Africa–Latin America.
• Prioritise these target customers in each market:
• **Nigeria:** licensed PSPs, fintechs and remittance companies, plus importers paying suppliers in China, the US and Europe who need reliable USD access.
• **Ghana:** mobile-money operators, remittance companies and PSPs handling diaspora inflows and trade payments.
• **Kenya:** mobile-money and remittance players, fintechs and exporters connecting East Africa to global markets.
• **South Africa:** fintechs, crypto-asset service providers and exporters looking for faster cross-border settlement.
• Sell USD collections, fiat–stablecoin on/off-ramps, named USD virtual accounts and global payouts across the territory.
• Qualify licensing and compliance requirements early with our Compliance team so customers onboard quickly and safely.
• Develop relationships with local banks, PSPs and liquidity providers that strengthen Caliza's African corridors.
• Use your network to source, qualify, and close new revenue-generating customers, and run full sales cycles from discovery through pricing, contract, onboarding, and first live transactions.
• Negotiate commercial terms, including bps pricing, FX spreads, and volume tiers, and present with confidence using existing templates.
• Keep pipeline, activity, and forecasts accurate in HubSpot, and track metrics such as pipeline coverage, win rate, time to first transaction, and monthly volume.
• Work with Customer Success, Operations, and Compliance to ensure smooth handoffs, and share prospect feedback to help refine the sales process.

What you'll bring

• 10+ years in sales or business development at a fintech, payments company, crypto business, or bank, ideally in Nigeria or across Africa.
• Experience selling to licensed PSPs, fintechs, mobile-money operators, remittance and trade-payment companies, and international businesses, with a track record of hitting quota across the full sales cycle.
• An existing relationship base with senior professionals in African fintech, payments or crypto, such as licensed PSPs, remittance companies and trade-payment operators.
• A clear understanding of the value stablecoins and blockchain bring to cross-border payments.
• A data-driven approach, strong negotiation and presentation skills, and excellent follow-through that never lets an opportunity slip.
• Comfort working in a fast-paced, resource-constrained startup and adapting your approach to local business cultures.
• Professional working fluency in English.
• Based in, or within two hours of, Lagos, with the ability to overlap a few hours a day with US Eastern and Brazil time zones.

Nice to have

• Prior startup experience.
• Deep understanding of the African fintech and crypto landscape and relevant regulations (e.g., CBN, SEC Nigeria, CBK, SARB/FSCA) as they relate to closing prospects.
• Experience with HubSpot, Slack, Notion, Google Workspace, and modern AI tools (e.g. Claude).