Head of Global Operations

About Tala
Tala is on a mission to unleash the economic power of the Global Majority – the 4 billion people overlooked by existing financial systems. With nearly half a billion dollars raised from equity and debt, we are serving millions of customers across three continents. Tala has been named by the Fortune Impact 20 list, CNBC’s Disruptor 50 five years in a row, CNBC’s World’s Top Fintech Company, Forbes’ Fintech 50 list for eight years running, and Chief’s The New Era of Leadership Award. We are expanding across product offerings, countries and crypto and are looking for people who have an entrepreneurial spirit and are passionate about our mission.
By creating a unique platform that enables lending and other financial services around the globe, people in emerging markets are able to start and expand small businesses, manage day-to-day needs, and pursue their financial goals with confidence. Currently, over nine million people across Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico, and India have used Tala products. Due to our global team, we have a remote-first approach, and also have offices in Santa Monica, CA (HQ); Nairobi, Kenya; Mexico City, Mexico; Manila, the Philippines; and Bangalore, India.
Most Talazens join us because they connect with our mission. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Tala, we’d love to hear from you!
The Head of Global Operations will oversee the collections and customer support functions for Tala across all markets. This role will both manage the global center of excellence for these functions as well as oversee the operation teams on the ground in Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya.
You will be responsible for delighting our customers at scale through the high-touch interactions and experiences that they have with our customer support and collections teams. You will own-define the overall strategy for these two critical functions and deliver a meaningful customer-facing impact by turning the strategy into action with the in-market teams. You will be representing these functions and our customers’ concerns as a member of the leadership team to create a deeper appreciation of the realities on the ground and to connect the dots between product, features, tools, and customer experiences.

What You’ll Do

• Strategic Leadership:
• Define strategic roadmap for collections & customer support with key initiatives prioritized based on expected impact on key KPIs for the function
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (product, engineering, marketing, credit) to gather required support to successfully complete initiatives holistically
• Create consistent set of metrics that are used to track performance
• For collections: Simplify existing multitude of metrics to more easily be able to assess overall performance
• For customer support: Define new north star metric that goes beyond a transactional NPS view
• Establish customer feedback loop to inform future product improvements required to resolve persistent customer pain points
• Identify new technologies and techniques that can step change our collections & customer support functions going forward
• Identify clear goals for each country and their specific team to work with managers on maximizing productivity and quality of experience for customers while working towards reducing costs
• Contribute strategic direction at leadership team sessions to further business objectives, minimize company risk and ensure company goals are met
• Functional Ownership:
• Provide guidance on telephony and dialer setup to maximize the impact of outbound calls; establish global framework for assessment of alternatives, ongoing health check processes and benchmarks
• Optimize agent resourcing across in-house / outsourced mix, incentive programs, EDC selection as well as performance management routines
• Improve agent efficiency by ensuring tooling and processes are optimized
• In partnership with product, create new ways for customers to self-cure once they go late and unlock new channels through which customers can reach out to us
• Upgrade our existing support experience to ensure users can either find answers to their questions or receive a response from our support agents in a timely manner
• Drive a holistic learning agenda into better ways to connect with customers when they go late and/or for customers to reach us in an intuitive, fast way to get help and evaluate new technologies (e.g. Gen AI) that can drive meaningful impact
• Execution Oversight:
• Establish a routine to review daily / weekly KPI performance to understand how close to targets the team is tracking
• Drive leadership engagement to deliver improvements if performance falls behind goals
• Own tracking of initiative progress of roadmap items to ensure delivering on time and with expected impact; ensure cross-functional team members are included in the process to create a true 360 view of initiatives
• Represent KPI achievement to broader exec team as global functional owner
• Team Management & Development:
• Ensure leadership team has proper guidance, coaching, feedback, communication and autonomy to be successful in their areas of ownership
• Handle roadblocks for the team to ensure company and country goals are met
• Over-communicate both within functional teams as well as across key cross-functional stakeholders to create an open and trusting environment
• Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning within the team.
• Identify and mentor high-potential employees, providing opportunities for professional growth and development

What You’ll Need

• 10+ years of experience in outbound contact centers; plus ideally, at least 3-5 years of experience in customer support
• Strong analytical skills and a problem-solving mindset
• Ability to think strategically to identify biggest points of leverage
• Customer-centric mindset that is based on strong empathy for our users
• People leader that is effective at managing large distributed teams across multiple geographies
• Strong at defining frameworks to deliver consistent results across geographies
• Dynamic team player with strong organizational and time-management skills
• Naturally curious with a tendency to think non-traditionally
• Ability to work in fast fast-paced, dynamically changing environment and excited to bring an energetic, fun and creative approach to your work
• Comfortable traveling to and working in emerging markets

Our vision is to build a new financial ecosystem where everyone can participate on equal footing and access the tools they need to be financially healthy. We strongly believe that inclusion fosters innovation and we’re proud to have a diverse global team that represents a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and experience. We hire talented people regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.