Project Overview

Our client, a Global payments firm, is currently engaged in a project with a leading South African bank. To support this effort, our client is looking to onboard an experienced Commercial Card Product Manager to deliver the bank’s Commercial Card strategy, including credit cards and virtual cards, and drive the profitability of the Commercial portfolio.

The consultant will take end-to-end ownership of the Commercial Card product lifecycle, including product strategy, roadmap development, customer experience, product enhancements, go-to-market planning, portfolio performance and sales enablement.

The ideal consultant will bring 10 years of experience in the credit card and card payments business, with strong experience in payments/card product management, product lifecycle ownership, financial services and cross-functional programme delivery.

Key Activities

• Manage the client’s Commercial card (i.e. credit cards and virtual cards) product lifecycle with high impact
• Build and manage high quality product roadmaps based on client business vision and strategy
• Define business problems, desired customer experience, vision and product strategy
• Analyze customer needs, current market trends, and potential partnerships from an ROI and build-vs.-buy perspective
• Partner with client teams to secure resources, scope efforts, set project priorities and milestones, and drive onboarding and enablement of key products
• Manage prioritization and trade-offs to ensure the right features are built with the right quality at the right time
• Partner with the relevant client teams to identify, influence and project manage development of priority CVP enhancements and key channel requirements (i.e. landing page enhancements)
• Identify the gaps and pain points in the existing processes and drive improvements
• Deep dive on issues and develop solutions for short (tactical) and long term (strategic)
• Strategise appropriate go-to-market and launch plans for key products, in conjunction with client Marketing
• Collaborate with Segment teams to drive adoption and cross-sell of the Commercial product suite
• Drive penetration of card products within Commercial sub-segments (Large Markets, Corporates, etc.)
• Enable frontline with the necessary knowledge and support to right sell, based on customer needs
• Work with credit to drive efficiencies that support sales growth, like, optimising credit appetite, driving immediate scoring and removing barriers to better support sales
• Develop, launch and grow alternative sales channels like digital/outbound
• Optimise the customer lifecycle management and portfolio performance through campaigns, etc.

KPIs

1. Financial Performance (card issuance growth, spend growth)
2. Customer acquisition and engagement
3. Customer satisfaction and experience
4. Operational efficiency

Your Background

Mandatory Requirements

• Based in Johannesburg
• 10 yrs experience in credit card and card payment business.
• Ready to start at end of Oct 2026

Qualifications/ expectations required:

• Bachelor’s Degree (or equivalent) in Commerce
• Overall 5-10 years experience in banking or financial services, with atleast 3 years in a management role
• Experience in payments/card product management with a proven track record of developing and driving execution of product strategy as well as strong technical pre-sales and implementation skills
• Experience owning/managing large program or projects
• Proven success in overseeing all elements of the product development lifecycle
• High effectiveness in managing cross-functional teams
• Experience in delivering finely tuned product marketing strategies
• Exceptional verbal and written skills

Mandatory Skills

• Prior experience in credit card product management, financial services or credit card operations.
• Experience managing the entire credit card product lifecycle, from ideation and development to launch and post launch optimization
• Familiarity with Agile frameworks for iterative product development and delivery
• Ability to mange multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring timely delivery and alignment with business objectives.
• Experience developing and executing marketing campaigns to promote credit card products.
• Ability to provide sales team with tools, training and resources needed to sell the product effectively.

Duration

12 months

Location

Johannesburg, South Africa