Business Development and Sales

Job Advert

Job Title: Business Development and Sales Job Type: Hybrid, Full-time, Permanent Location: Lagos, Nigeria

Our client is a venture firm that partners with bold founders building transformative companies across Africa and emerging markets. We invest capital, talent, and operational support to help our portfolio companies grow with speed, structure, and staying power.

This role sits within one of our portfolio companies, a fintech startup reshaping how businesses and individuals manage travel and operational expenses. The company has recently launched an innovative expense management solution designed to simplify how companies handle employee spend, travel reimbursements, and cross-border payments.

We are hiring on behalf of this portfolio company and will work closely with the successful candidate through onboarding and beyond. We look for commercially sharp, entrepreneurial professionals who thrive in fast-moving environments and want to build, not just execute.

Role Summary

As the company's first Business Development and Sales hire, you will play a pivotal role in taking the product to market; validating product-market fit, acquiring early customers, shaping sales strategy, and building scalable revenue channels. This is a foundational, high-ownership role with direct exposure to the founding team and clients’ investment and operating partners.

This role has significant growth potential, including the opportunity to build and lead the sales team as the company scales.

• Own go-to-market execution: Drive user acquisition and early adoption through outbound and inbound strategies.
• Develop and refine sales playbooks: Create pitch decks, sales scripts, and onboarding flows.
• Lead prospecting and pipeline building: Identify high-potential leads through cold outreach, networking, and partnerships.
• Demo and close: Conduct product demos, handle objections, negotiate deals, and close contracts with SMB, mid-market, and enterprise clients.
• Strategic feedback loop: Gather insights from prospects and customers to inform product features, pricing, and market positioning.
• Build sales infrastructure: Set up CRM, sales funnels, email campaigns, and performance tracking frameworks.
• Establish partnerships: Identify and negotiate strategic alliances with travel, accounting, and financial software providers.

• 5+ years of B2B and/or B2C SaaS sales or business development experience, preferably in fintech, expense management, or travel tech.
• Proven track record of owning the full sales cycle from prospecting through to close.
• Experience working within early-stage startups or driving new product launches.
• Strong understanding of buyer personas across finance, HR, and operations functions.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and negotiation skills with a sharp customer experience orientation.
• Hands-on experience with CRMs (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce) and sales enablement tools.
• Self-motivated and entrepreneurial, comfortable with ambiguity and autonomy.