Chief Technology Officer

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Location: Lagos, Nigeria (Hybrid) Industry: Fintech | Digital Banking | Payments | Mobile Money Experience Level: 15+ Years Employment Type: Full-Time | Executive (C-Level) Reports To: Chief Executive Officer / Board of Directors Monthly Net Salary: 2,000,000 2,500,000 About the Organization Our client is a fast-growing Pan-African digital financial institution committed to transforming access to finance, powering SME digitization, supporting cross-border trade, and expanding financial inclusion across Africa. The organization is set to launch operations in Nigeria under a Microfinance Bank (MFB) license, with a strategic roadmap to evolve into a fully digital commercial bank serving retail, SME, enterprise, and merchant segments across multiple African markets. With a mission to build Africa's most intelligent, trusted, and inclusive financial technology ecosystem, the institution will innovate across digital payments, lending, forex access, merchant enablement, cross-border commerce, and digital wealth solutions. Role Overview The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will be responsible for shaping and executing the banks technology vision, architecture development, platform engineering, and technology-led innovation. The role demands a bold, future-focused, and execution-driven leader with proven experience scaling digital banking or fintech platforms across Africa, particularly in high-volume payments, cloud-first architectures, and regulated environments. The successful candidate will build a world-class engineering culture, strengthen cybersecurity posture, drive digital resilience, and deliver a platform capable of scaling across multiple jurisdictions. Key Responsibilities 1. Technology Strategy & Architecture Develop a multi-year technology and engineering strategy aligned with business scale and market expansion. Architect a scalable and secure Pan-African digital banking technology stack adaptable to multi-currency, multi-jurisdiction environments. Lead transition from an MFB technology model to a full commercial banking digital infrastructure. 2. Engineering Leadership & Delivery Excellence Build, lead, and mentor high-performing engineering teams across Backend, Mobile, Cloud, DevOps, QA, SRE, and Data Engineering. Implement Agile methodologies with disciplined release management, reliability metrics, and uptime standards. Lead the development and optimisation of key digital capabilities including onboarding, payments, lending, APIs, merchant services, and remittances. 3. Core Banking, Infrastructure & Integrations Lead selection, implementation, and optimisation of core banking, payments infrastructure, and system integration. Ensure high availability, resilience, automated CI/CD environments, monitoring systems, and cloud operations. Oversee integrations with NIBSS, card schemes, telcos, processors, regulators, and global cloud partners. 4. Cybersecurity, Compliance & Risk Management Own enterprise cybersecurity strategy, identity management, access controls, and infrastructure defense. Ensure regulatory compliance with frameworks such as CBN, NDPR, PCI-DSS, SOC, ISO 27001, and African regional standards. Lead disaster recovery, business continuity, and fraud mitigation strategies. 5. Technology Operations, Governance & Vendor Oversight Manage technology operations, vendor relationships, licensing, SLAs, audits, and infrastructure procurement. Establish technology governance frameworks covering compliance, risk, and platform lifecycle management. 6. Ecosystem Partnerships & Innovation Develop partnerships with cloud hyperscalers, fintech innovators, telcos, API platforms, and ecosystem builders. Participate in technology due diligence for partnerships, acquisitions, and regional expansion. 7. Leadership, Culture & Executive Alignment Build a high-performance engineering culture grounded in innovation, ownership, accountability, and security-first thinking. Represent the technology organisation at board level while closely partnering with Product, Risk, Operations, Finance, and Compliance stakeholders. Qualifications & Experience Requirements Education Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or related fields (required). Masters degree or professional certifications (Cloud, Cybersecurity, DevOps, Digital Banking) are an added advantage. Experience Minimum 15+ years in progressive technology leadership roles. 58 years at CTO, CIO, VP Engineering, or comparable senior capacity. Proven track record building and scaling digital banking, fintech, payments, or mobile money environments. Experience operating across multiple African markets is highly desirable. Technical Expertise Deep expertise in cloud-native systems (AWS, Azure, GCP), microservices architecture, DevOps, CI/CD, and containerisation. Strong understanding of core banking systems, switching, authentication, identity, and high-volume transaction systems. Demonstrated experience architecting secure, scalable, API-driven platforms. Leadership Competencies Visionary thinker with strong operational discipline. Exceptional communication and board-level engagement capability. Highly resilient, adaptable, and passionate about emerging markets and financial innovation. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Platform uptime, resilience, and cybersecurity posture Roadmap delivery timeline and product release velocity Regulatory compliance and risk audit outcomes Engineering team productivity, retention, and performance Cost optimisation and technology investment ROI Market scalability and successful multi-country deployments How to Apply Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV and a brief cover email to: hiring@mysigma.io Subject Line: Application Chief Technology Officer (CTO)