Head of Cybersecurity (CISO)

About Global-Backed Payments Scale-Up

Our partner, a leading African payments infrastructure company, is seeking a Head of Security to build and lead its information security function. You will develop a scalable security strategy, ensure compliance with global standards like PCI DSS and GDPR, and safeguard customer data against evolving threats in a high-growth fintech environment. This leadership role involves building a multi-disciplinary security team and driving solutions across all levels of the business.

You will lead the Information Security function, bringing your technical expertise, balanced communication, and bias for action to drive solutions that protect the platform for the good of the business, its customers, and stakeholders. You'll be responsible for building the entire security program from the ground up, establishing policies and standards across the company, and significantly improving its overall security posture. This role is critical for enabling trust and safeguarding customer assets and data against an evolving landscape of sophisticated global and regional threats. If you thrive on building foundational security in a fast-paced, high-growth fintech environment, and enjoy translating complex security concepts for executive leadership, this gives you real ownership and impact.

What you'll do

• Develop and implement a scalable information security strategy aligned with business objectives.
• Ensure compliance with PCI DSS, GDPR, and data protection laws in operating markets.
• Own and manage the end-to-end security risk management framework, translating risks for executive leadership and the board.
• Recruit, mentor, and lead a high-performing, multi-disciplinary security team.
• Establish and mature a robust threat intelligence program, particularly for the African fintech ecosystem.
• Design, operationalize, and regularly test incident response, business continuity, and disaster recovery plans.
• Oversee the design of secure systems and review application/infrastructure security architectures, leading cloud security strategy.
• Develop business cases and manage the budget for information security program investments.
• Communicate security goals, represent the organization externally, and manage key customer relationships across business units.
• Develop and track KPIs like incident response times, compliance audit results, and vulnerability management metrics.

Requirements

• You have proven experience in information security governance, risk, and compliance for a global organization.
• You are knowledgeable about technical infrastructure, networks, databases, and systems in relation to IT security and risk.
• You are a strategic business partner, able to articulate complex security concepts and risks in business terms to non-technical stakeholders, including the executive team and the board.
• You can effectively lead, manage, and inspire a multi-disciplinary team to achieve strategic and functional objectives.
• You have experience developing and publishing company-wide security policies, standards, and governance documents.
• You excel at cross-functional collaboration, rigorous thinking, and making hard decisions and tradeoffs.
• You can demonstrate initiative, operate autonomously, and assume complete responsibility for tasks.
• You possess deep knowledge of cybersecurity principles, industry standards, frameworks, and best practices.
• You have proven experience scaling a security program in a high-growth, fast-paced technology or fintech environment.