Card Portfolio Specialist

CARD PORTFOLIO SPECIALIST Hyper Lychee Labs Location: Nairobi, Kenya Duration: 12 Months ABOUT THIS ROLE We are recruiting a Card Portfolio Specialist to join one of Kenya's leading banks on a high-impact 12-month engagement. This is a senior, commercially driven position where you will own the full performance and growth trajectory of the card business — managing P&L accountability, driving revenue through strategic campaigns and product launches, and maintaining ongoing portfolio health. You will be the person who knows exactly where the card portfolio makes and loses money, understands what moves the numbers, and executes the solutions. This role demands authentic card payments expertise developed through direct hands-on experience, not peripheral retail banking knowledge. Candidates must be based in Nairobi or eligible to work onsite in Kenya for the full 12-month period. WHAT YOU'LL DO You will carry full P&L accountability for the card portfolio, monitoring revenues, costs, and profitability on monthly and quarterly cycles while taking decisive action when trends shift unfavorably. Working closely with channel, marketing, and IT teams, you will drive growth by identifying and executing customer acquisition opportunities, designing targeted campaigns, running promotions, and implementing tactical initiatives that increase revenue or reduce costs. Portfolio oversight is continuous. You will track critical performance signals including transaction approval rates, spend growth, credit-limit utilisation, and pricing dynamics, using data analysis to identify optimization opportunities and prevent negative trends from taking root. You will manage scheme costs and compliance requirements while building efficient systems and processes across fraud, operations, and sales functions. On the development side, you will design campaigns aligned with the bank's genuine capabilities and strategic priorities, develop business cases for internal approval, orchestrate cross-functional execution, and address implementation challenges as they arise. You will contribute to new product definition, articulate compelling customer value propositions, and program-manage launches across all stakeholders — including tokenization and virtual-card initiatives. Additionally, you will partner with marketing, communications, IT, and operations teams to address customer-experience issues related to declines, fraud, and chargebacks, ensuring technical resolutions are implemented by the appropriate teams. WHAT YOU NEED Required: • 10 to 15 years of direct experience in card payments, including hands-on project implementation and management • Deep, working-level knowledge of card business and payments fundamentals — understanding the commercial levers that drive the business, not just operational mechanics • Proven track record developing card products within retail banking environments • Demonstrated ability to independently manage end-to-end card product launches or significant portfolio revamps • Strong analytical capabilities combined with effective leadership and stakeholder-management skills, including ability to report clearly to senior leadership • Based in Nairobi or eligible to work onsite in Kenya throughout the engagement • Fluent written and verbal communication in English Preferred: • Experience with tokenization and virtual-card program initiatives • Relevant degree qualification • Working knowledge of the broader payments market landscape, including industry trends, emerging opportunities, and competitor product strategies THE PERSON WE'RE LOOKING FOR You are genuinely comfortable owning a P&L and making commercial decisions grounded in data analysis rather than simply reporting metrics. You understand the card business deeply enough to diagnose portfolio health from a handful of key metrics and know instinctively which commercial levers to activate. You are an operator who thrives in cross-functional environments, capable of coordinating across channels, marketing, IT, operations, and risk functions — recognizing that meaningful progress typically requires bringing multiple teams together. SUCCESS MARKERS • Monthly and quarterly P&L performance you can confidently explain and defend • Approval rates, spend, and utilisation metrics trending positively with proactive intervention before decline • Campaigns and product launches delivered on schedule with business objectives achieved • Scheme costs and compliance maintained at optimal efficiency levels • Customer-experience issues involving declines, fraud, and chargebacks identified and resolved promptly