Anzara

About the Company

We are a fast-growing group of fintech companies providing online lending and related financial services in Ukraine, and several African countries.

To lead this transformation, we are looking for a CIO / CTO who can own the technology vision and turn it into reality.

Role Overview

The Group CIO / CTO will be the key technology leader for our multi-country fintech ecosystem. This person will:

• Set the overall technology strategy and target architecture
• Establish and streamline processes across all IT and development teams
• Gradually unify technology stacks and reduce unnecessary complexity
• Build and orchestrate effective communication between IT, product, operations, risk, finance and the leadership team

This is a hands-on leadership role: you will work closely with multiple teams and business leaders, while still being able to dive into architecture, tooling and delivery details when needed.

You will report directly to the CEO / Group Board and work as a peer to other C-level roles (COO, CMO, CFO, etc.).

Key Responsibilities

1. Technology Strategy & Architecture

• Define and own the group-wide technology strategy, aligned with business goals and expansion plans (including South Africa and other new markets).
• Map the current technology landscape (Azure + .NET, PHP, Python, databases, integrations, legacy systems) and propose a target architecture.
• Develop a roadmap for gradual stack unification (e.g. common platforms, shared services, integration layer) without disrupting current operations.
• Set and maintain architecture principles and standards (APIs, security, data, documentation, code quality, monitoring).

2. IT & Development Processes

• Refine existing SDLC processes across teams:
  • Requirements gathering and prioritization
  • Estimation and planning
  • Development, code review and testing
  • Release management and change management
• Refine existing Scrum practices and ensure they are applied consistently.
• Establish processes for incident management, problem management, root-cause analysis and post-mortems.
• Implement documentation standards for systems, APIs, integrations and processes.

3. Team & Vendor Management

• Provide leadership and mentoring to several distributed IT and Dev teams (in-house and outsourced).
• Define clear roles, responsibilities and reporting lines within IT, development, DevOps and support.
• Evaluate and manage external vendors and partners (development agencies, cloud providers, integration partners, security vendors).
• Identify gaps in the organization and support hiring and onboarding of key technical roles (architects, team leads, DevOps, etc.).

4. Integrations & Platform Reliability

• Oversee and improve the architecture and reliability of our numerous integrations:
  • Payment providers, mobile money operators, banks
  • Credit bureaus and scoring providers
  • SMS and communication gateways
  • Online court and government services
• Ensure the platform supports high availability, scalability and performance, with proper logging, monitoring and alerting.
• Drive standardization of integration approaches (e.g. API gateway, message queues, integration patterns) across countries and products.

5. Security, Compliance & Risk

• Work with Compliance / Legal to ensure that systems meet regulatory and security requirements in each country (data protection, KYC/AML, audit trail, etc.).
• Define and enforce IT security policies, access control, backup and disaster recovery standards.
• Regularly review risks related to technology, security and operations, and propose mitigation plans.

6. Communication & Stakeholder Management

• Act as the main technology interface for business stakeholders (CEO, COO, Heads of Operations, Risk, Collections, Marketing, Country Managers).
• Translate business needs into clear technical roadmaps and explain technical constraints and trade-offs in simple language.
• Establish regular governance routines: steering committees, roadmap reviews, release calendars, status reporting.
• Build a culture of transparency, where IT communicates proactively about priorities, timelines, risks and issues.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Experience

• 8+ years in software development / IT, with 3+ years in a senior leadership role (CTO, CIO, Head of Engineering, VP Engineering or similar).
• Proven experience in fintech, online lending, banking, payments or other highly transactional systems.
• Strong background with cloud platforms (preferably Azure) and at least one of the main stacks we use (.NET, PHP, Python).
• Demonstrated success in:
  • Structuring and scaling multiple development teams
  • Implementing standardized processes across distributed teams
  • Managing complex integration landscapes with third-party systems

Skills & Competencies

• Strong architecture and systems thinking: able to see the big picture and also dive into details when necessary.
• Excellent process and organizational design skills – you enjoy turning “ad-hoc chaos” into structured, repeatable workflows.
• Outstanding communication skills: able to talk business with non-technical people and technical details with engineers.
• Experience working with international, multicultural teams and multiple time zones.
• Data-driven mindset with focus on measurable outcomes (availability, delivery speed, defect rate, etc.).
• Fluent English (spoken and written).

Education

• Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• Additional training / certifications in architecture, project management or cloud (e.g., Azure, TOGAF, PMP, Scrum) would be a plus but not mandatory.

What We Offer

• A strategic leadership role with real influence on the future of a growing fintech group across several countries.
• Opportunity to shape the technology landscape from the ground up: architecture, processes, team structure and tools.
• Onsite or hybrid work model, with business trips to our operating countries as needed.
• Competitive compensation package, including performance-based bonuses.
• A chance to work on products that directly impact financial inclusion in emerging markets.