Senior HR Business Partner

Description

At Optasia we use the latest technologies and tools to build impactful customer experiences, grow our network and provide comprehensive financial access for millions of customers in countries across continental Africa, Asia and beyond.

We are seeking a dynamic senior human resources business partner who has deep experience supporting fast-growing, international business coupled with a strong understanding of startup and scaleup culture.

The ideal person will possess strong commercial acumen, excellent stakeholder management skills, and the ability to translate business strategy into practical people plans that strengthen performance, leadership capability, and organizational effectiveness.

Experience partnering with senior leaders across multiple markets, navigating complexity with confidence, translating data insights into interventions and applying sound judgement to sensitive people matters is essential.

This is not a junior or mid-level role. This is a senior team role in a growing organization - an opportunity to work in a company where a go-getter spirit and customer orientation are valued as highly as technical excellence.

Detailed overview

Location: Johannesburg, Dubai, Lagos

Candidate profile

A credible, commercially minded HR leader who can operate as a strategic partner to senior stakeholders while remaining close to execution.

Comfortable working in a fast-paced, matrixed, multicultural environment where priorities shift quickly and strong judgement is required.

Passionate about building high-performing teams, coaching leaders, and creating people practices that are scalable, data-informed, and employee-centric.

Key responsibilities

• Act as the single point of contact for the employees and leaders in your region.
• Act as a strategic partner in your region, identifying the people needs required by the business.
• Partner with senior business leaders to shape and execute people strategies that align with company growth priorities, organization design needs, and workforce plans.
• Act as a thought leader and coach. Providing trusted guidance on performance, engagement, talent planning, succession, team effectiveness, change management and complex employee relations matters.
• Use people data and business insight to identify trends, diagnose organizational issues, and recommend practical actions that improve retention, productivity and leadership capability.
• Support leaders through organizational change, including restructures, operating model changes, role clarity and communication planning.
• Collaborate with talent acquisition, rewards, payroll and people operations colleagues to ensure joined-up delivery of core people processes and a consistent employee experience.
• Coach and challenge managers to raise the quality of decision-making, leadership behaviours, and people management practices across their functions.
• Acts as HR policy and process expert: lead annual people cycles such as performance reviews, talent reviews, promotions, workforce planning, and compensation discussions.
• Ensure local practices remain aligned with employment legislation, internal policy, and company values across relevant markets.
• Lead the continuous improvement of people team frameworks, policies, and manager enablement tools to support international scale.

Requirements

• 8+ years HR experience, including at least 4 years dedicated HR business partnering experience in high-growth, international, technology-led or fintech environments across Africa and Asia.
• Extensive experience managing complex employee relations cases across Africa and Asia.
• Demonstrated ability to build effective working partnerships with senior stakeholders and influence decision-making through credibility, insight and sound judgement.
• Experience of operating across multiple countries, with good working knowledge of employment practices and people risk in the markets where the company operates.
• Strong capability in organization design, leadership development, change management, performance management, employee relations, and leadership coaching.
• Proven experience designing and facilitating training to managers and employees.
• Data-driven, people-centric and business-oriented approach to solving workforce and organizational challenges.
• Experience in a challenging, dynamic and complex business environment with a focus on multiculturalism and internationalism.
• Ability to quickly build trust with employees, managers, and cross-functional partners.
• Strong diplomatic and interpersonal skills with high levels of professionalism and integrity.
• Ability to plan and prioritize work under tight deadlines, work on own initiative, and as a member of a team.

Why join us?

We are a high-growth, AI-powered financial infrastructure platform serving over 432 million users in emerging markets across Africa and Asia. By harnessing the power of AI and real-time data we unlock financial opportunities for customers. We have been recognized as a top fintech by Forbes Middle East, culminating in a successful stock exchange listing in 2025.

Our global team builds the tech, products and services which will change the game for the world's unbanked population. We empower our people by offering unique employee experiences and support individual careers by prioritizing well-being and embracing flexibility.

Benefits include:

• Work from anywhere policy
• Competitive remuneration package
• Extra day off on your birthday
• Performance-based bonus scheme
• Comprehensive private healthcare insurance
• All the tech gear you need to work smart

Join us in shaping the future as we grow together.