Executive Manager- Merchant Planning

The Executive Manager – Merchant Growth Planning & Trade Marketing will be responsible for driving strategic planning, analysis, and execution to accelerate Easypaisa's merchant growth. This role combines planning, business analysis, and trade marketing to ensure that acquisition, engagement, and retention initiatives are well-supported with market insights, data-driven decision-making, and effective merchant-facing campaigns. The role requires a strong mix of analytical, strategic, and commercial skills, along with cross-functional collaboration to align business, product, and operations.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Channel & Partner Management

• Build and maintain strong relationships with distribution partners, including merchants, retail agents, and business correspondents.
• Collaborate with retail and merchant partners to design programs that promote the bank's digital products and services (e.g., onboarding support, training, or digital adoption drives).
• Monitor partner performance through dashboards and field reports, ensuring KPIs like activation rate, transaction volume, and customer sign-ups are met.

Market Visits & Field Execution

• Conduct regular market visits to retailers, merchants, and agent outlets to:
• Assess brand visibility and merchandising quality.
• Understand market feedback, challenges, and customer behavior.
• Ensure digital banking products and materials are well-positioned and effectively communicated.
• Provide on-ground support to sales and partner teams for product training, digital onboarding, and local promotional efforts.
• Gather field insights to help refine trade marketing and channel development strategies.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with product, marketing, and distribution teams to ensure alignment of strategies across digital and physical touchpoints.
• Coordinate with compliance and legal teams to ensure all field materials and programs meet banking standards and regulatory requirements.
• Support training and enablement of sales and merchant teams to drive consistent brand and service experience.

Budget & Resource Management

• Manage trade marketing budgets allocated for channel development and retail/merchant support.
• Optimize resource allocation for maximum impact and efficiency across regions and partner segments.
• Negotiate with vendors and suppliers for production of POS materials, and other trade assets.

Market & Competitive Intelligence

• Monitor market trends and competitor activities across digital and offline banking channels.
• Conduct field research to understand partner sentiment, customer adoption patterns, and regional opportunities.
• Provide insights to leadership to refine product positioning and trade marketing initiatives.

Merchant Planning & Strategy

• Develop and evaluate business cases for new initiatives, ensuring alignment with company strategy and ROI.
• Identify and execute new channel expansion opportunities.
• Conduct gap analysis and recommend improvements across onboarding and merchant management frameworks.
• Support new product development with market research and collaboration on PRD (Product Requirement Documents).
• Track, monitor, and manage KPIs with the sales team to ensure delivery against merchant acquisition and performance targets.
• Provide management-level reporting, funnel analysis, and insights for data-driven decision-making.
• Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders including Business, Product, Technology, and Operations.

Trade Marketing

• Develop and implement trade marketing strategies to support merchant acquisition and retention.
• Design merchant-facing campaigns, POS visibility initiatives, and category-specific activations.
• Collaborate with regional and sales teams for campaign rollouts, ensuring alignment with acquisition priorities.
• Measure and evaluate campaign effectiveness, linking outcomes to KPIs.
• Manage agency/vendor relationships for campaign execution and ensure cost-effective trade spends.
• Align trade marketing initiatives with overall brand and product marketing objectives.

Merchant Ecosystem Development

• Build and strengthen easypaisa's merchant ecosystem to ensure sustainability and long-term growth.
• Identify ecosystem partners (e.g., FMCG, retail, service providers) and collaborate for co-branded or joint offerings.
• Develop frameworks for merchant lifecycle management (onboarding, activation, engagement, retention, churn management).
• Drive initiatives that increase merchant stickiness, transactional activity, and cross-product adoption.
• Ensure alignment between ecosystem development and regulatory requirements.
• Act as a key liaison for ecosystem-related initiatives with external and internal stakeholders.

Direct Reports:

N/A

Role Relationship

Internal

• Segments
• Sales team
• Alternate Channels
• Business Intelligence

External

• Telecom Sector
• Banking Sector
• External Distributors

Knowledge and Experience

Education:
Bachelor's or master's degree in business, Economics, Data Science, Business Analytics, or related field

Experience:
4-8 years

Behavioral Skills & Competencies:

• Strong understanding of sales hierarchy structures, merchant ecosystems, and channel performance dynamics.
• Demonstrated ability to manage large datasets and deliver actionable insights under tight deadlines.
• Analytical thinking and problem-solving mindset
• Business acumen with strong understanding of sales and distribution
• Attention to detail and data accuracy
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills
• Strategic thinking with the ability to translate data into business impact
• Self-driven, proactive, and collaborative team player