Senior Manager, Strategy (Licensing & Expansion)

About the Team:

The Strategy Team works on a range of projects including Aspire’s international expansion objectives. This role will focus on Aspire’s first stage of our expansion work by paving the way to obtain the regulatory licences needed to enter new markets. This role will work closely with our in-country team members as well as the Compliance, Operations, Legal and Finance Teams in support of go-to-market in new jurisdictions. This role will play a crucial role in expanding Aspire’s jurisdictional reach. The portfolio of licences we seek to obtain in key markets around the world is a key driver to enable Aspire to achieve its long-term growth objectives.

About the Role

This role will be responsible for helping Aspire expand its business into new markets by setting up our local subsidiaries and obtaining the licences that we need in each market. The successful candidate for this role will be someone who loves to build things from scratch by being both hands-on and strategic. This role will help project manage the licensing phase of Aspire’s entry into new markets in APAC, EMEA and the Americas. Aspire also has plans to launch new products in its existing markets, so this role will also be responsible for helping to obtain licences for those products. 

Responsibilities include but not limited to:

• Get the licenses Aspire needs to enter the new markets it is expanding into and that are needed for the new products it plans to launch in its existing markets
• Develop and operate an efficient project management framework to enable Aspire to set-up its local business and obtain new licenses in various geographies
• Capture licensing requirements and develop strategies to fulfill those requirements by effectively engaging with various stakeholders in the Aspire Group
• Effectively capture real-time and ongoing data on the status of licensing projects and report on the progress to the broader Strategy Team and senior management
• Plan, strategise and execute licensing applications, including developing business plans and coordinating completion of all required licensing application documents
• Manage deadlines, assigned owners and overdue tasks that are allocated to internal stakeholders such as the Legal, InfoSec, Network and Compliance Teams
• Create and manage the process to efficiently capture regulator questions relating to licensing applications and coordinate Aspire’s response for ease of future reference by key stakeholders
• Lead the development of playbooks, SOPs, checklists, templates and other tooling to enhance the capabilities and speed to obtain new licences

Minimum Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• A minimum of 6 years experience in strategy, management consulting or similar
• Strong organisation and project management skills
• Strong writing and communication skills including the ability to clearly and concisely articulate technical matters
• Able to work independently as part of global team to run multiple projects around the world
• Experience working in a fast-paced environment and eager to jump into the work environment of a rapidly-growing, global fintech business

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience with regulatory licensing applications, particularly payments and/or related financial services industries is highly preferred
• Experience setting up and managing global projects, including managing multiple stakeholders in various geographies around the world
• Experience setting up and using Jira, Confluence, Notion and/or other software to help with project management and cross-functional collaboration would be highly valued