Marketplace Matching Manager

Marketplace Matching Manager

Zowasel is a pan-African agribusiness, trade finance and compliance infrastructure company operating an integrated marketplace platform across multiple value chains and markets.

Zowasel is an Afreximbank Trade Corridor Partner, providing intra-African and global market access, trade finance and logistics support to cooperatives, merchants, businesses and enterprise organisations, and enabling them to originate and close deals on the Africa Trade Exchange.

Through its own marketplace and its participation in the Africa Trade Exchange, Zowasel connects suppliers with enterprise buyers nationally, regionally and internationally. Its measurement, reporting and verification system supports quality and sustainability compliance, and its alternative credit evaluation and scoring system facilitates supply chain and trade finance.

Role Purpose

Following Zowasel's appointment as an Afreximbank Trade Corridor Partner, the Company is seeking a Marketplace Matching Manager to own marketplace operations, matching and sales across both the Zowasel Marketplace and activities on the Africa Trade Exchange. The postholder oversees the end-to-end flow from buyer requirements and supplier listings through to a matched, closed and fulfilled trade, and carries full responsibility for sales, transactions and revenue. The immediate priority is conversion of the existing base of over 4,000 onboarded merchants and around 200 onboarded buyers into closed trades, ahead of new acquisition.

The postholder is accountable for closing deals with or without trade finance attached. A trade that can be closed on the buyer's own funds should close on the buyer's own funds. Finance is applied where it unlocks a trade that would not otherwise happen, or where it improves terms for the cooperative or the merchant. The postholder is measured on closed, fulfilled trades and the revenue they generate, not on the volume of finance attached to them.

This is a senior management appointment carrying the commercial weight of the Trade Corridor Partner relationship. The role combines dashboard-driven matching with hands-on brokerage of high-value B2B agribusiness trades, customer-success ownership and disciplined trade execution. It bridges marketplace operations and credit by assembling complete trade-finance requests for independent assessment, without exercising credit approval, disbursement or settlement authority.

The postholder works through a supporting structure of regional supply chain managers, sales officers and agents rather than transacting alone, and is judged on the output of that structure. It requires an experienced marketplace operator who can hold a commercial conversation with a procurement director and chase a stuck consignment in the same afternoon.

The postholder will build and lead a Marketplace Matching and Customer Success team responsible for servicing existing and newly onboarded customers, ensuring that every onboarded counterparty has a named owner, an active listing or live requirement, and a route to a closed trade.

Scope and Delineation

The role sits inside the Commercial function, with a functional line into Credit Risk & Deal Management. Responsibility is divided as follows.

Area

Marketplace Matching Manager

Held elsewhere

Marketplace operations, matching and sales

Owns the function and the outcome

—

Counterparty acquisition

Sets the demand requirement and receives qualified counterparties

Growth Manager and Trade Force own acquisition

Listing, posting and order intake

Owns quality, accuracy and completeness before matching

—

Deal closure and fulfilment

Owns — through to accepted delivery and payment

Supply Chain and Operations execute movement

Credit assessment and approval

Assembles and submits complete credit files. No assessment role

Credit Risk & Deal Management assesses; CFO and CEO approve

Pricing and payment terms

Applies the approved schedule

Sales and Commercial Director owns the schedule

Buyer classification and tiering

Provides evidence of payment behaviour

Credit Risk assigns the tier

Product and algorithm changes

Specifies and recommends

Product & Technology build

Customer success and account management

Owns through the Marketplace Matching and Customer Success team; every onboarded counterparty has a named owner

—

Revenue recognition and reporting

Delivers closed and settled trades and reports pipeline and conversion

Finance recognises revenue and is the system of record for revenue, GMV and collections

Reporting and support structure

The postholder reports on a primary line to the Sales and Commercial Director, and on a functional line to the Head of Credit Risk and Deal Management, with respect to credit-file quality, transaction risk, and adherence to credit processes. Where the two lines conflict, for example where a commercially attractive trade does not meet credit requirements, the credit position prevails, and the matter is escalated rather than resolved locally.

The postholder is supported by regional supply chain managers, sales officers and sales agents, and works alongside the Growth Manager and the Trade Force network. The Growth Manager and Trade Force deliver qualified merchants, agro-dealers, cooperatives and corporate buyers; the Marketplace Matching Manager converts them into matched, closed and fulfilled trades. The postholder sets the demand requirements that acquisition works to meet and reports where supply or demand is not being met. The regional field structure continues to report to its own line management; the postholder directs it on matching priorities, listing standards and service levels, and directly manages the Marketplace Matching and Customer Success team.

Key Responsibilities

• 1. Buyer Requirements, Offers and Trade Finance Requests

• ▪ Work directly with enterprise buyers, processors and manufacturers to capture their offers, purchase requirements, requests for quotation and supply chain requests, and translate them into actionable marketplace demand.

• ▪ Capture and qualify trade finance requests arising from buyer requirements, and determine at the point of intake whether a trade needs finance to close or can settle on the buyer’s own funds.

• ▪ Maintain a live register of open buyer requirements, including volume, specifications, delivery window, price basis, payment terms, and status.

• ▪ Build and hold the senior buyer relationships that generate repeat requirements rather than one-off enquiries.

• ▪ Activate the existing buyer base: work systematically through onboarded buyers to convert registrations into live, specified requirements, prioritised by value and repeatability.

• 2. Supplier Orders, Listings and Postings

• ▪ Oversee merchant, agro-dealer and cooperative orders and requests, ensuring each is complete, verified and capable of being matched.

• ▪ Own the quality and accuracy of product listing and posting on the marketplace — commodity, grade, volume, location, availability window, price basis and supporting documentation.

• ▪ Ensure listings are refreshed, stale postings retired, and availability reflects what suppliers can genuinely deliver.

• ▪ Work with regional supply chain managers and sales officers to convert supplier capacity into listed, matchable supply.

• ▪ Activate the existing merchant base: work systematically through onboarded merchants to convert registrations into verified, matchable listings, and report the activation rate monthly.

• 3. Matching and Deal Closure

• ▪ Monitor live marketplace activity to ensure rapid, high-quality matching between cooperatives, merchants, agro-dealers and enterprise buyers.

• ▪ Hand-pick and broker matches for high-value bulk trades where algorithmic matching is insufficient, including grade, volume, timing and price alignment.

• ▪ Drive trades to closure, whether settled on the buyer’s own funds or supported by trade finance, and own the conversion of matched interest into an executed purchase order.

• ▪ Facilitate negotiations among commercial farms, cooperatives, agrochemical and input manufacturers, and wholesale buyers to align product grade, specifications, volumes, and delivery schedules.

• ▪ Ensure purchase orders are issued to verified suppliers, priced correctly, and denominated in the local currency of the country of listing, with export listings in USD.

• ▪ Enforce minimum order quantities and the Company’s rule that smallholder farmers are administered through approved cooperatives or authorised administrators rather than self-registering.

• 4. Fulfilment and Exception Handling

• ▪ Identify and resolve stuck, delayed or unfulfilled requests, and minimise drop-off between match and fulfilment.

• ▪ Act as the primary point of contact for complex matching scenarios, manual interventions and dispute resolution between counterparties.

• ▪ Manage quality rejections, short deliveries, specification disputes and substitution, escalating to Quality Compliance and O