Job Description

Job Title: Head of Data

Location:

Tygerberg Office Park, Uys Krige Drive, Plattekloof, Cape Town, South Africa (Hybrid/On-site)

Role

Overview

Lesaka is seeking an experienced and strategic

Head

of

Data

to lead data capabilities across the Group, with a dual mandate:

At

Group

level

:

Act as

Head

of

Data

Eng

i

neer

i

ng

, defining and operating shared data platforms, architecture, and engineering standards across Consumer, Enterprise, and Merchant businesses.

At

Enterpr

i

se

level

:

Own the

end-to-end

data

funct

i

on

, including Data Engineering, Analytics Engineering, Data Analytics, and Data Science, driving insight, innovation, and measurable business value.

This role is critical to enabling data-driven decision-making, scalable platforms, and advanced analytics across Lesaka?s diverse and high-volume businesses.

Key

Responsibilities

Group

Responsibilities

(Consumer, Enterprise, Merchant)

Serve as

Group Head of Data Eng

i

neer

i

ng

, accountable for:


Data platform strategy, architecture, and tooling Reliability, scalability, performance, and cost efficiency of data platforms Define and enforce

group-w

i

de

data

eng

i

neer

i

ng

standards

, best practices, and governance Build and maintain shared data infrastructure supporting high-volume transactional systems Partner with Group Technology, Security, and Architecture teams to ensure compliance, security, and resilience Enable self-service analytics and data access across all business units Lead and develop senior data engineering leaders across the Group

Enterprise Responsibilities (Full Data Ownership)

Act as

Head

of

Data

for

the

Enterpr

i

se

bus

i

ness

, with full accountability for: Data Engineering Analytics Engineering Data Analytics / BI Data Science Translate enterprise strategy into a

data and analyt

i

cs roadmap

Drive adoption of modern analytics practices (semantic layers, metrics, experimentation, ML) Partner closely with Enterprise leadership (Product, Sales, Finance, Operations) Deliver actionable insights that improve: Revenue growth Customer acquisition & retention Risk management Operational efficiency Oversee advanced analytics and data science use cases, including predictive modeling and optimization Own data quality, trust, and business usability within Enterprise

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

Lead, mentor, and scale high-performing multi-disciplinary data teams Influence senior executives with clear, outcome-focused data narratives Balance short-term delivery with long-term platform evolution Act as a key advisor on data, analytics, and AI strategy Manage vendors, partners, and third-party platforms where applicable

Governance, Risk & Compliance

Ensure compliance with regulatory and data privacy requirements (e.g., POPIA) Implement strong data governance, lineage, and quality frameworks Partner with Risk and Compliance teams to ensure responsible data usage

Required Experience & Skills

Experience

10+ years in data roles, with significant leadership experience Proven experience leading data teams at scale
Experience owning end-to-end data functions (engineering analyticsdata science) Background in complex, high-volume environments (payments, fintech, financial services preferred) Experience operating in multi-business or group structures


Technical & Functional Skills

Modern data platforms (cloud data warehouses, streaming, orchestration) Strong understanding of analytics engineering and BI best practices Familiarity with data science and machine learning lifecycle Data governance, quality, and security frameworks Ability to translate business problems into data solutions

Leadership & Personal Attributes

Strategic thinker with strong execution capability Excellent communicator across technical and non-technical audiences Comfortable operating at executive level Pragmatic, outcome-driven, and commercially aware * Strong people leader with a track record of building senior teams