Name of Role : General Manager (Country Management)
Reports to :Vice President Asia Pacific
Location: Manila, Philippines
About The Client
Our client is a global non-bank financial services company that specializes in international money transfers, foreign exchange services, and digital payment solutions, serving individuals and businesses across multiple countries. With a strong network of physical branches and digital platforms, our client focuses on providing secure, reliable, and customer-centric financial services that make cross-border transactions simple, fast, and affordable.
About the Role
The General Manager is responsible for leading and delivering the company's overall strategy, performance, and governance within the country of operations. The role provides end-to-end leadership across physical branches (including airport locations), digital wallet operations, and banknotes import/export activities, ensuring profitability, regulatory compliance, and sustainable growth.
The GM drives business expansion through market insight, partnerships, and new revenue streams while strengthening brand positioning and go-to-market execution. They are accountable for financial planning, cost control, pricing discipline, and capital management, supported by strong financial controls and reporting.
The role oversees digital, technology, and innovation initiatives to enhance customer experience, operational efficiency, and competitiveness. It ensures operational excellence, consistent service standards, workforce capability development, and a healthy organizational culture.
The GM also carries full responsibility for risk management and compliance, including adherence to BSP regulations, AML/CFT governance, audit readiness, and reputational risk management, while maintaining strong oversight of vendors and partners.
The General Manager (GM) is responsible for:
Strategy, Leadership and Governance
- Implementing company strategy by communicating and embedding the company's vision, mission, and overall direction in the country of operations.
- Providing overall leadership and direction across physical branches, airport locations, digital wallet offerings, and banknotes import/export activities.
- Leading, directing, evaluating, and ensuring accountability of team members, including the deputy general manager, business unit heads, area managers, and branch-in-charges.
- Delivering strategic objectives and profitability targets as defined in approved country plans.
- Supporting area managers and branch-in-charges in effective service delivery and operational management.
Business Growth, Partnerships and New Revenue Streams
- Maintaining awareness of the competitive landscape, customer needs, market opportunities, and industry developments.
- Identifying and developing growth opportunities, including partnerships with banks, payment networks, merchants, billers, digital partners, remittance partners, and relevant ecosystem players (including airports and travel).
- Driving product and channel expansion across physical and digital platforms in line with regulatory permissions and company strategy.
- Strengthening brand positioning and go-to-market initiatives in collaboration with marketing and key stakeholders.
Financial Planning, Profitability and Capital Management
- Ensuring profitability through disciplined financial planning, capital management, and execution of business plans.
- Setting budgets, controlling costs, and managing country-level financial performance. Ensuring strong financial controls, reconciliations, and reporting across branch, wallet, and treasury/banknotes operations.
- Driving pricing discipline and margin optimization across FX, remittance, wallet fees, and banknotes trading.
Digital, Technology and Innovation
- Overseeing digital wallet operations as a core growth driver, including product performance, adoption, service quality, and vendor/partner management.
- Ensuring effective technology governance, including vendor oversight, service levels, change and release management, and business continuity.
- Driving innovation initiatives to enhance customer experience, efficiency, and competitiveness across physical and digital channels.
Operations, Service and Capability
- Ensuring strong day-to-day operational performance across all branches, including airport locations, with focus on service quality, staffing, and procedural compliance.
- Ensuring consistent customer service standards and protection of the company's reputation. Building organizational capability through workforce planning, training, performance management, and succession planning.
- Managing and resolving conflicts and fostering a healthy, productive work culture.
- Visiting and overseeing operational locations within the country as required.
Risk Management and Compliance
- Managing operational, financial, partner/vendor, and reputational risks within the country of operations.
- Ensuring compliance with BSP regulations and all applicable legal and regulatory requirements.
- Ensuring strong AML/CFT governance, audit readiness, and timely closure of internal and external audit observations.
Other
- Performing other responsibilities as required by the business.
Requirements
- Ability to anticipate market and technology trends and incorporate these into organisational planning.
- Ability to set budgets, fund strategic initiatives, control costs, and manage capital and liquidity considerations prudently.
- Ability to build organisational and staff capability to develop a high-performing workforce and reliable processes.
- Exceptional capacity for managing and leading people; a team builder with experience scaling organisations and connecting with staff at individual and group levels.
- Ability to enforce accountability, develop leaders, empower teams, and put people in positions to succeed.
- Enjoys working hard, takes charge when needed, and can act with limited information while managing risk appropriately.
- Broad experience and understanding across business functions and systems including strategic development and planning, budgeting, business analysis, finance, information systems, human resources and marketing
- Strong capability to lead businesses with both physical operations (branches/airport units) and digital products (wallet/services)
- Excellent negotiation skills (including partner and vendor negotiations)
- Excellent presentation and stakeholder management skills
- Strong change management abilities
- Empathy and impartiality in decision making.
- Minimum 8 to 10 years senior management experience in financial services including one or more of: foreign exchange, remittance, payments, digital wallet/fintech, banking or regulated financial institutions.
- Experience in building partnerships and driving growth is highly preferred.
- A solid educational background is required for this role, with a minimum of an MBA and/or Chartered Accountant qualification. An advanced degree, related to Financial Services is also highly desired.
- Fluent English is required for this role.
