🚀 We’re Hiring: Head of Analytics & Insights – Analytics, Reporting & Business Intelligence

Are you a commercially sharp, data‑driven leader who can turn complex data into meaningful insights that drive real business impact?

Lesaka Merchant is looking for a Head of Analytics & Insights to lead our analytics capability within the Merchant Data Department — transforming data into actionable insights that support operational excellence, strategic decision‑making, and revenue growth across the Merchant Division.

📍 Location: In‑person (Rosebank / Woodmead)
📊 Reporting Line: Executive Head of Data
👥 Direct Reports: Data Analysts, BI Developers, Insights Analysts

💼 Purpose

The Head of Analytics & Insights is responsible for leading the team that converts curated data into business understanding, insight, and action.

This is not a passive reporting role — you will:

• Drive proactive insight generation
• Identify trends, anomalies, and opportunities
• Translate data into commercial value
• Enable leadership to make better, faster decisions

Working closely with Data Engineering and Business Advisory, this role ensures that analytics outputs move beyond reporting into true business influence and behavioural change.

🔍 Key Responsibility Areas

Analytics & Reporting Delivery

• Lead the full analytics function including dashboards, reporting, ad‑hoc analysis, and data extracts.
• Ensure delivery against prioritised business requirements with high quality and accuracy.
• Define and enforce standards for analytical rigour, visualisation, and usability.
• Own BI platforms and self‑service analytics environments.

Data‑to‑Insight: Proactive Analytics

• Build a culture of proactive insight generation across the team.
• Identify patterns, trends, anomalies, and opportunities beyond stakeholder requests.
• Develop reusable analytical frameworks across customer behaviour, product performance, and operations.
• Drive a consistent cadence of insight reviews and business‑impact reporting.

Insights Packaging & Business Collaboration

• Partner closely with Business Advisory to ensure insights are actionable and clearly communicated.
• Support executive decision‑making with strong analytical narratives.
• Participate in executive forums to provide technical context and insight depth.
• Maintain clarity between analytics delivery and stakeholder engagement responsibilities.

Data Engineering Partnership

• Act as the primary consumer voice for the data platform.
• Translate analytical requirements into data engineering needs (models, structures, serving layer).
• Manage data-quality issues through formal escalation and resolution processes.
• Provide feedback on platform usability, reliability, and performance.

Team Leadership & Capability Development

• Lead, mentor, and build a high‑performing analytics and BI team.
• Define roles across BI, structured analysis, insight generation, and support functions.
• Develop team capability in SQL, visualisation, statistical thinking, and business understanding.
• Contribute to scaling the analytics function through hiring and team design.

🎓 Qualifications & Experience

Essential:
✔ Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, Economics, Information Systems, or similar)
✔ 8+ years’ experience in analytics, BI, or data environments
✔ Proven leadership experience managing analytics or BI teams
✔ Advanced SQL skills with experience working on large datasets
✔ Hands-on experience with BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker, etc.)
✔ Strong stakeholder management and communication skills

Advantageous:
• Experience in fintech, payments, or financial services
• Exposure to dbt or modern data stack tools
• Python/Pyspark experience
• Statistical modelling (cohort, segmentation, churn, etc.)
• Experience presenting to executive or board-level stakeholders

🧠 Key Competencies

Analytical Rigour
Maintains high standards of accuracy, methodology, and integrity in analysis.

Commercial Sharpness
Understands how the business creates value and aligns insights to revenue and risk.

Insights Orientation
Moves beyond reporting to explain why things happen and what should be done.

Communication & Storytelling
Translates complex data into clear, visual, and decision‑ready insights.

Collaborative Partnership
Works effectively with Data Engineering and Business Advisory as equal partners.

Leadership & Talent Development
Builds a high‑performing team and raises analytical capability across the function.

🌟 Our Values

At Lesaka Merchant, we are guided by four core values:

✔ Entrepreneurial Spirit – We innovate boldly and act with ownership
✔ Integrity – We operate with honesty, trust, and transparency
✔ Collective Wisdom – We collaborate and leverage shared expertise
✔ Bias to Action – We execute with urgency and focus

📌 Preference will be made to support EE / AA measures.

🔗 Ready to lead data‑driven transformation and shape decision‑making at scale?
Apply now — or share this opportunity with a world‑class analytics leader.

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