Business Development, Africa at Stellar Development Foundation in EMEA

Interested in working on cutting-edge blockchain technology and creating equitable access to the global financial system? Since 2014, the mission-driven team at the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has helped fuel the tremendous growth of the Stellar blockchain network, an open-source platform that operates at high-scale today. Developers and companies around the world build on it, and the SDF team is expanding to support the rapidly growing and changing Stellar ecosystem.

Africa is not a future opportunity for Stellar — it is an active one. We have live integrations with fintech and payment companies across West and East Africa and a growing cohort of builders developing on Stellar rails, and relationships with some of the continent's leading financial institutions and ecosystem partners. We are now hiring a senior, Africa-based leader to own and scale this momentum — someone who can operate at the intersection of business development, ecosystem strategy, and institutional relationship-building, and who will serve as SDF's most visible and accountable presence on the continent.

You will define how SDF shows up in Africa, shape the strategy that gets executed, and be directly accountable for the outcomes — builder pipeline, live integrations, institutional partnerships, and the long-term health of Stellar's African ecosystem.

In this role, you will:

• Own SDF's Africa business development effort — defining priorities, allocating effort across five hub markets (Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Ethiopia), and adapting the playbook by market needs and expectations.
• Lead in-market execution across all five hub markets, including structured annual visits to each hub that deliver across a full engagement programme: conference presence, owned ecosystem meetups, top-tier builder roundtables, incubator and accelerator partnerships, strategic institutional meetings, and policy and regulatory introductions.
• Build and close high-value partnerships with fintech companies, payment platforms, wallets, ramps, and developer teams building on Stellar, driving active pipeline companies through to live Stellar integration and sustained network volume.
• Develop and manage SDF's institutional relationships across the continent — including major telcos (MTN, Airtel Africa, Vodacom), tier-1 banks (Access Bank, Equity Bank, Standard Bank, GTBank, KCB Group), and development finance institutions — identifying and progressing partnership opportunities that drive volume at infrastructure scale.
• Cultivate relationships with Africa's leading incubators and accelerators — including iceaddis, iHub, Mowblox, LoftyInc, Tony Elumelu Foundation, and 88mph — to generate sustained builder pipelines and increase Stellar's visibility among early-stage founders making infrastructure decisions.
• Serve as the internal champion and voice of the African market within SDF — translating on-the-ground intelligence into strategic recommendations, influencing product priorities, and ensuring the broader organisation understands the region's nuances, opportunities, and constraints.
• Serve as SDF's primary relationship owner for Africa-based ecosystem partners throughout their journey — from initial engagement through integration and growth — facilitating connections across the Stellar ecosystem that accelerate partner success.
• Build and maintain rigorous pipeline discipline across HubSpot and Airtable, ensuring integration status, relationship health, and strategic context are accurately captured and accessible to the broader team.
• Drive post-visit content production in partnership with the marketing team — including trip reports, video, blog posts, and social content — that amplifies SDF's presence and narrative across African markets.
• Represent SDF at flagship regional conferences and events, and own the design and execution of SDF's owned events on the continent, including builder roundtables and ecosystem meetups in each hub city.

You have:

• Bachelor’s Degree (required), Master’s Degree or MBA (preferred)
• 8+ years of business development, partnerships, or ecosystem experience, with substantial time spent working at senior levels in or closely with African markets
• Deep, senior-level relationships across the African fintech, payments, blockchain, and institutional landscape — including builders, accelerators, banks, telcos, and regulatory stakeholders.
• Experience in blockchain, digital assets, stablecoins or tokenization.
• Understanding of crossborder payments, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and financial inclusion.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex, multi-stakeholder partnership negotiations and closing deals that require internal alignment as well as external relationship management.
• Experience navigating regulatory environments in African markets
• Exceptional communication skills across diverse audiences — you can distill a complex technical value proposition into a compelling narrative
• Fluency in English; proficiency in French or Swahili is a strong advantage given our Francophone West Africa and East Africa presence.
• Based in Africa, with the ability and willingness to travel extensively across the continent and occasionally internationally.

We offer competitive pay with a base salary range for this position, depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, we offer lumen-denominated grants along with the following perks and benefits:

USA Benefits/Perks:

• Competitive health, dental & vision coverage with most plans covered at 100% for the employee + any dependents
• Flexible time off + 15 company holidays including a company-wide holiday break
• Generous paid parental leave for all parents, plus paid pregnancy disability leave for birthing parents
• Gym reimbursement ($80 per month)
• Life & ADD (up to $50K)
• Short & Long term disability
• 401K with 4% match
• Health & Dependent Care FSA Accounts
• Commuter benefits with $250/month employer contribution
• Health Savings Account (HSA) with monthly employer contribution
• Family building benefits through Kindbody
• Wellbeing benefits (One Medical, Rightway, Headspace)
• L&D budget of $1,500/year
• Daily lunch and snacks in office
• Company retreats

About Stellar

Stellar is more than a blockchain. Powered by a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable network made for financial products and services and a thriving and passionate ecosystem that includes a non-profit organization driven by a mission, Stellar is paving the path to unlock the world’s economic potential through blockchain technology. Built with speed and low costs in mind, the Stellar network provides builders and financial institutions worldwide a platform to issue assets, and to send and convert currencies in real time creating real world utility. Founded in 2014, the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) supports the continued development and growth of the Stellar network and also serves the ecosystem of NGOs, corporations, universities, small businesses, governments, and solo entrepreneurs building on the Stellar network through tooling, funding and strategic collaborations. Together, Stellar is where blockchain meets the real world.

About the Stellar Development Foundation

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is a non-profit organization focused on working with and supporting change-makers to create equitable access to the global financial system through blockchain technology. SDF provides grants, investments, funding, and other awards to builders and organizations. SDF also develops resources and tooling on the Stellar network to help unlock real world utility. As a nonprofit foundation, SDF puts the health of the Stellar network and the Stellar ecosystem and its mission above all else.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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SDF is committed to diversity in its workforce and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. SDF does not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other basis protected by applicable local, state or federal law.