Country Manager - Italy at Wise in Milan, Lombardy, IT

Company Description

Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money.

Min fees. Max ease. Full speed.

Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their lives easier and save them money.

As part of our team, you will be helping us create an entirely new network for the world's money.

For everyone, everywhere.

More about our mission and what we offer.

Job Description

Our ability to offer hyper-localised products and services determine the quality of our service to our Italian customers. And our relationships with regulators, governments, and payment systems are crucial too. So, we’re on the hunt for an executor with a brilliant mind and strong complex problem-solving skills to help more customers save money with us.

We’re looking for a Country Manager for Italy. This is a unique and exciting opportunity to play a pioneering role to grow Wise in one of our key markets in Europe, allowing millions more potential customers to save money by using our services. You will have full responsibility for overseeing our local team and operations, defining our market expansion and winning strategies for product localisation and executing on it, and being the face of Wise in Italy.

Your mission:

• Define the opportunities and direction for our products in Italy. Collaborate across global and regional teams, and inspire others so that we deliver the best solution.

  • Work closely with product teams (Product Managers and Product Engineers) to develop our vision and build better and hyper-localised products and experiences for our customers in Italy.
  • Work with our global teams (Product, Finance, Treasury, etc.) to ensure our customers and products are at the centre of our mission.

• To deepen our presence and infrastructure in Italy.

  • Identify the most appropriate way to grow Wise in Italy. If we need new licences and/or registrations to offer more products and services in Italy, you will work with the central banking and expansion team to manage the entire process: understand the regulations, prepare, coordinate and submit the application, and obtain the regulatory licence as well as support the fulfillment of any other local requirements.
  • Identify opportunities to offer the best product in the market taking advantage of our existing and future authorisations.
  • Manage and support the day to day requirements for our authorisation in Italy, both from a Product and Compliance perspective.

• Lead our Italian branch and operations into its next stage of growth.

  • You will also be appointed as Country Manager for Italy and be one of the Directors/Legal Representatives of our Italian branch.
  • Manage the relationship with the local regulators and other important strategic relationships, and be accountable for strong governance.
  • Work with our team in our European headquarters and maintain oversight of Wise’s business operations in Italy. Guide strategy, provide leadership and alignment amongst the various functions responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of the entity. Providing leadership on the ground to local teams and functional leads to ensure smooth operations.
  • Participate in all relevant committees and Board meetings.
  • Represent Wise in Italy, working with Public Relations, Government Relations, and Product Marketing teams to drive brand awareness and position Wise as a key industry player.

• Take ownership of maintaining and improving existing relationships with industry partners and other financial institutions. You will:

  • Lead commercial and relationship discussions with partners to ensure we offer the most sustainable and competitive service in the market.
  • Create new opportunities within existing relationships with relevant financial and non-financial institutions in Italy to ensure we continuously improve our product (i.e. increase speed, reduce costs, add more visibility to our transactions, etc.).

• Strong Complex Problem Solving Operations.

  • Adapt and scale high-velocity global and regional operational frameworks into granular, local execution.
  • Orchestrate rapid responses to critical incidents ensuring business continuity while minimising risk exposure.
  • Utilise deep quantitative rigour to conduct root-cause analysis on operational and product bottlenecks.
  • Manage and harmonise relationships with disparate stakeholders ranging from local regulators and central banks to global product and engineering squads to unblock critical dependencies.

This role would suit someone who is:

• Excellent at creating and managing relationships with regulatory authorities and government bodies, constantly creating opportunities to improve them.

• Strong understanding of managing local entity operations and ensuring relevant compliance.

• Able to get stuff done. Not afraid to get hands dirty to deliver what is needed - we’re a fast growing company and you will need an entrepreneurial mindset to thrive.

• Deep understanding of how financial and payments systems, and how the relevant regulators work, and the different decision makers that need to be taken into account to make things happen.

• Understand financial and payments regulations (and other relevant regulations for tax, law enforcement, consumer protection, etc.) in a changing regulatory environment and have an understanding of risk and anti-money laundering controls.

• Familiar with different licensing frameworks and requirements in Italy.

• You are business fluent in Italian and English.

• Able to work independently and flexibly within a fast-moving environment. Able to travel to our other offices from time to time to work with the relevant stakeholders.

• Passionate about transforming the financial industry for good.

Additional Information

For everyone, everywhere. We're people building money without borders — without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive.

We're proud to have a truly international team, and we celebrate our differences.

Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected, empowered to contribute towards our mission and able to progress in their careers.

If you want to find out more about what it's like to work at Wise visit Wise.Jobs.

Keep up to date with life at Wise by following us on LinkedIn and Instagram.