Job Description – Head of Business Change

Role Title: Head of Business Change

Reporting To: Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Purpose of the Role

The Head of Business Change is accountable for leading the successful implementation, adoption, and operational embedding of change initiatives within the Enterprise division.

The role ensures that new systems, processes, capabilities, and operating model changes are effectively implemented and transitioned into business-as-usual operations. This includes responsibility for business change delivery, operational readiness, customer onboarding, configuration management, training, adoption, and transition governance.

The role also leads Enterprise division projects that require coordination across multiple functions and, where necessary, engagement with stakeholders in other Lesaka divisions or group companies to manage dependencies and ensure successful outcomes.

The role is not accountable for product strategy, product roadmap decisions, software engineering delivery, or technology architecture. Its focus is ensuring that approved capabilities and changes are successfully adopted and operationalised.

Operating Model Context

Operations exists to activate platform capabilities for customers and ensure operational readiness, visibility, and stability.

The Head of Business Change provides the capability that bridges the gap between capability delivery and operational adoption by ensuring that change initiatives are implemented effectively and become embedded in day-to-day operations.

Key Accountabilities

Business Change Management

• Lead business change initiatives within the Enterprise division.
• Manage the implementation of operational systems, business platforms, process improvements, and organisational change initiatives.
• Define and execute change management, communication, adoption, and readiness plans.
• Conduct change impact assessments and readiness reviews.
• Ensure stakeholders understand and are prepared for upcoming changes.
• Measure and report on adoption, implementation success, and realised business outcomes.
• Coordinate cross-functional activities required to achieve successful implementation.

Enterprise Project Leadership

• Lead Enterprise division projects that deliver operational, process, system, or organisational change.
• Establish clear project governance, reporting, milestones, and accountability structures.
• Manage project risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies, and decisions.
• Coordinate stakeholders across multiple Enterprise functions to ensure successful execution.
• Where Enterprise initiatives have dependencies on other Lesaka divisions or group companies, engage and coordinate with the relevant stakeholders to ensure alignment and delivery.
• Escalate unresolved risks, constraints, or dependency issues through the appropriate governance structures.

Customer Onboarding

• Lead the onboarding capability for new customers, partners, and services.
• Ensure customers are activated efficiently, consistently, and in line with agreed service standards.
• Improve onboarding cycle times and activation quality.
• Maintain onboarding governance, controls, standards, and operating procedures.
• Ensure effective coordination between Commercial, Product, Technology, Operations, and Capital functions throughout onboarding.

Configuration Management

• Lead teams responsible for customer, platform, and operational configuration activities.
• Establish configuration standards, controls, and quality assurance processes.
• Ensure configurations are implemented accurately, consistently, and traceably.
• Support onboarding, readiness, and operational activation activities through effective configuration management.

Operational Readiness

• Define and maintain readiness frameworks and go-live criteria.
• Ensure operational, support, training, process, and governance readiness prior to implementation.
• Coordinate readiness activities across impacted teams.
• Ensure implementation risks are identified and mitigated before activation.
• Provide readiness recommendations and sign-off inputs for major initiatives.

Transition to BAU

• Ensure successful transition of initiatives from project implementation into operational support.
• Define handover requirements, ownership models, support structures, and operational controls.
• Ensure runbooks, training materials, support processes, and operational documentation are complete before transition.
• Minimise operational disruption during implementation and stabilisation periods.

Continuous Improvement

• Drive improvements in onboarding, implementation, readiness, and adoption practices.
• Standardise delivery approaches, templates, governance models, and controls.
• Identify opportunities to improve operational effectiveness and customer experience.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement across the Operations function.

Decision Rights

The Head of Business Change is accountable for decisions relating to:

• Business change execution approaches.
• Operational readiness requirements.
• Adoption and training strategies.
• Onboarding standards and procedures.
• Configuration governance and controls.
• Transition-to-BAU requirements.
• Enterprise project execution and governance.

The role is consulted on:

• Product implementation impacts.
• Operational implications of new capabilities.
• Technology deployment readiness.
• Customer activation requirements.

The role is not accountable for:

• Product strategy.
• Product roadmap prioritisation.
• Product feature definition.
• Software engineering delivery.
• Technology architecture decisions.
• Technology platform ownership.
• Financial investment approvals.

Key Stakeholders

Internal

• COO
• Head of Operations
• Product Managers
• Head of Engineering
• Technology Leadership
• Commercial Managers
• Growth Managers
• Finance Leadership
• Risk and Compliance Teams
• Enterprise Functional Leaders

External

• Customers
• Partners
• Vendors
• Service Providers

Success Measures

Business Change

• Change adoption rate
• Readiness sign-off success rate
• Benefits realisation achievement
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Change-related incident rate

Project Delivery

• On-time project delivery
• Project milestone achievement
• Risk and issue resolution effectiveness
• Successful implementation outcomes

Customer Onboarding

• Onboarding cycle time
• Activation success rate
• Percentage of on-time go-lives
• Customer onboarding satisfaction

Configuration Management

• Configuration accuracy
• Configuration-related incident rate
• Configuration lead time

Operational Readiness

• Go-live success rate
• Hypercare incident rate
• Time to operational acceptance
• Successful transition-to-BAU rate

Experience Required

• 8–12 years’ experience in business change, operational transformation, programme delivery, onboarding, implementation, or operations leadership roles.
• Proven experience leading CRM, ERP, workflow, operational platform, or business system implementations.
• Experience managing cross-functional projects and organisational change initiatives.
• Experience operating within technology-enabled businesses.
• Strong understanding of operational governance, readiness, adoption, and transition management.
• Experience leading teams responsible for onboarding, implementation, configuration, or change management.

Leadership Expectations

The Head of Business Change will:

• Lead change with clarity, structure, and accountability.
• Drive adoption and operational readiness across the Enterprise division.
• Balance transformation objectives with operational stability.
• Build high-performing onboarding, configuration, and change teams.
• Create transparency around delivery progress, risks, and dependencies.
• Influence stakeholders across functions and organisational boundaries.
• Ensure change initiatives translate into sustainable operational outcomes.

Value Created

Successful implementation and adoption of operational change, resulting in faster activation, improved operational readiness, reduced implementation risk, enhanced customer experience, and greater realisation of business value.