Rosemary Aimankhu: Shaping the Future by Putting Customers at the Center of the organizations

A leadership driving sustainable change will empower the future. In that sense, Rosemary Aimankhu’s focus is on driving Commercial Teams to achieve growth and deliver shareholder returns. As a commercial leader responsible for driving growth and delivering stakeholder value, some of her strategic priorities include

Product simplicity and market fit: what product/service are we offering to the market?The product/service should fit and deliver beyond the market expectation; it must resolve identified pain points of the customer. This is the only way the customer will be willing to pay for it consistently.
Digital transformation and technology adoption:the appropriate infrastructure is critical for real-time delivery, customers who have opted for instant delivery cannot afford persistent delays, the process should include the use of AI to help deliver value-added services to the customers, on time and in full.
Rural penetration:With some level of saturation in the urban areas, emphasis is shifting to the rural and semi-urban areas to create community ecosystems to drive not only financial, but ultimately economic inclusion, which is the ultimate objective of every organization that is focused on sustainable growth.
Customer support: the reason why experts refer to 99.9% uptime is to always make provision for “unexpected system challenges”, however the ability to quickly and effectively deal with issues that occur less than 1% of the time determines the customer’s trust on the brand. Therefore an effective customer support structure is key to ensure issues are quickly resolved to provide great CX for sustainability.
Risk and security:the ecosystem requires high resilience in cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, and operational stability as these are basic priorities for growth. These give the customers some sense of confidence on the brand, knowing that their money is safe and their data secure and confidential.

Rosemary’s leadership roles span across the FMCG & Fintech (financial services) landscape. The experiences have helped her develop go-to-market execution from a ‘Customer pathway’ perspective. With over ten years of combined experience at Interswitch Group & MoMo PSB her contributions include managing agent networks, driving transactions, and overseeing customer service through a contact center. “While trying to execute a go-to-market plan, we need to define the target audience and understand the pathway of the audience, determine where the biggest gap exists within the pathway and provide seamless solutions to close these gaps”

How Fintech is Redefining Financial Inclusion

Fintech continues to redefine financial inclusion across Africa. Rosemary informs that according to the A2F report of 2023, 36% of adults in Nigeria are unbanked, while the total number of unbanked adults across Africa is about 42%. These numbers have significantly improved over the past five years through the mobile money and digital financial platform transformation across Africa. With about 84% and 46% of mobile phone penetration in Nigeria and Africa simultaneously, according to GSMA Intelligence, 2024. The opportunity to transform financial services rendition to the underserved becomes bigger than ever before, because people can now begin to get basic services through their phones. Though there are financial barriers to entry due to the cost of the phones, availability of connectivity infrastructure, and access to power to charge these phones have created challenges. To ease these challenges, organisations within telecoms space, solar-powered devices, and phone manufacturers have started making deliberate efforts to improve these within the underserved communities. Some Telcos are partnering with the government to deploy more base stations, solar-powered systems, and phones are being offered on a ‘lease to own’ option to ease the initial cost of investment and drive phone penetration within these communities. These will enable access to financial services & economic inclusion ultimately, without the development of brick and mortar shops, but through Agency banking and consumer access through Applications and USSD options.

The Most Critical Operational Strategies

Having extensive experience managing large agent networks and driving transaction growth, according to Rosemary, the most critical operational strategies for scaling agent-driven financial ecosystems are

Liquidity management:Proactive liquidity management is essential, as an agent without liquidity (e-float) cannot serve the ecosystem. This has, over the years, been enhanced by loans and overdrafts, which have given the agents more options to effectively service the customer better
Agent to customer ratio:The ability to create agent territory coverage increases the opportunity for cluster profitability. The ability to identify high footfall clusters and designate agents also drives optimization.
Product portfolio expansion:it is critical to have a larger banquet of product offerings for the agents, not only Cash-in and Cash-out, but also savings, loans, bill payments, and other relevant products, especially based on the needs of the ecosystem. This not only provides value-added services but also helps the agents optimize their investments and maximise returns.
Agent Training andfinancial literacy: Effective training through videos, online and physical sessions on product knowledge, etc., as well as basic financial literacy skills development, is critical to success. These are the VAS to the agents and gives the agents the feeling of being part of the business and valued by the business as a partner.
Support:When there are issues with transaction processing, are there systems and processes that will help drive quick resolutions? Does the agent know who to call, what to do? This is an essential aspect of an agent-driven financial ecosystem to drive trust! Remember, in this business, the customer is standing in front of the agent and demanding a service as promised, delays lead to frustrations which could determine if that customer will be loyal to the agent or not.
Agent Incentives:This is one of the most critical parts; it addresses the ‘what is in it’ for the agent, which is the basic reason the agent is interested in the ecosystem. Commissions on transactions, performance bonuses, lower fees with increased transactions, etc., will incentivize the agents to drive the process.

The Crucial Alignment

Leading commercial operations requires aligning strategy, partnerships, and customer experience. Rosemary says that the alignment of strategy, partnerships, and customer experience is key to leading commercial operations. “The way we have tried to continuously drive this alignment is to ensure that we partner with various stakeholders.” That is telecoms operators, other value-added services providers like banks, power, cable TV, betting, and payment collection, other organisations, presenting these services through simple processing methods through USSD or App channels, making it seamless and convenient for customers to perform these transactions. “By providing these services in the most efficient ways where customer experience is seamless, we achieve our commercial operation strategies and ultimately drive sustainable growth.”

Overcoming the Challenges

As a female leader, especially in a male-dominated industry/department, as typically ‘men’ lead commercial teams, Rosemary says the challenges include

Gender bias:unlike men, women are typically stereotyped, “Seen as ‘Aggressive’ when we try to behave like our male counterparts and seen as ‘Passive’ when we don’t, so either way, it feels like it’s never enough.”
Work-life balance:Being the leader of the Commercial team in a fintech is extremely demanding; you are responsible for the numbers and constantly reminded that bonuses and remuneration of the entire organisation were potentially on your shoulders, hence ‘grind time’ seemed never-ending. Sometimes activities will go on long after work hours and late into the night. Based on this, the home front will suffer, and you will have to make excuses for missing family, school, etc. events.
Leadership politics:‘Because I typically adopt more empathetic, collaborative, and inclusive leadership styles. I am also bluntly objective with some semblance of diplomacy; this sometimes rubs off the wrong way with some stakeholders.” However, I think it is critical to always know yourself and define lines you can or cannot cross to succeed.

Team Empowerment with Ubuntu Philosophy

Empowering teams is essential for long-term success. For Rosemary, her team is the reason she is. “I believe in ‘Ubuntu,’ I am because we are.” Some of the ways she builds and nurtures high-performing teams include the following:

Setting a clear direction for the team:“It is important that the team understands from the get-go where we are going. It is also critical that the team understands that ‘we are in this together & everyone has a role to play.” It is also critical to define the role of each member and what it takes to remain part of the team.
Encourage Open communication andcollaboration: ‘The competition is outside.’ “We must collaborate, the one who scores the goal is important, but that the goal was scored by our team is more important.”
Draw strength from diversity:Identify the strengths of the team members and harness them. “While we develop options to de-emphasize and help members improve weak areas.”
Continuous feedback loop:Provide feedback in the most appropriate way to drive the change expected and provide support to help team members improve. Create team accountability partners to help those struggling, and when the turnaround does not happen, formally manage them out to areas where they would add value, either within or outside the team..
Provide Psychological safety:“Give room to team members to speak freely, challenge my ideas with data and rigor, I tell them, I am open to change when the facts change. I learnt this some time ago from a leader I respect. I am quick to apologize, admit error, etc. They need to understand that I am human, and so are they. We take responsibility for our actions and do not point fingers when we are wrong.” This can be very difficult, but with practice it gets easier ad helps growth, especially if you are a high performer!
Team empowerment:Effective delegation with authority, support the team, give room for failures, but quickly course correct to learn and improve. Make it clear that “authority” comes with “responsibility” always!
Celebrate Success:When individuals and teams have done ‘a good job’, celebrate them openly and make them enjoy the limelight. Remember that when your team shines, the spotlight is actually on you, irrespective of what others think, you know you have provided the environment, the opportunity and the support to make that “shine” happen.

Insights on Financial Inclusion

Financial inclusion remains a critical goal in many emerging markets. In Rosemary’s view, industry leaders have a role to play in bridging the economic and digital divide. This will include. Infrastructure development and affordable access: Industry leaders in telecoms, power, banking, etc., need to continue to invest in infrastructure and affordable access to improve the industry. The destination is not “financial inclusion” because this is just the provision of the access to and usage of the financial products, however the final goal should be “economic inclusion” which is to ensure individuals and groups can participate and benefit from the economy through employment, entrepreneurship, ownership of assets etc

Leading by Example

Innovation often requires bold decision-making. In that regard, Rosemary shares a leadership moment where taking a calculated risk led to meaningful growth or transformation. A few years ago, she and some senior colleagues made a decision to innovate to improve a cash-out process; at that time, everyone was skeptical that it would work. “We had a session and ‘rouged’ it with a single agent. After tests, regression, and validation, we rolled it out. Within three months, we hit astronomical heights that the business formally recognized the outcome, which had led to over 300% growth and improved processing speed.”

“Towards the end of last year, we took a calculated risk to transfer the cost of a critical line of transaction, which has led to a consistent increase in cost of sale for over two years.. We knew the cost transfer would lead to a potential loss in some consumers, but we implemented it knowing that the gain would outweigh the loss. Two weeks after implementation, the gains were obvious. We, however, had to carry out some further implementations to “minimize the losses” And ensure consistent customer experience.

Making the Customer King Again

Finally, as one of the Top 10 Most Empowering Women Leaders to Watch in 2026, Rosemary’s vision for the future of digital finance is an ecosystem where the consumer truly becomes ‘king.’ Various organisations and platforms will most likely have similar services with few differentiatirs. However, the customer will use those who have provided the best customer experience, speed to action, ease of issue resolution, and affordable services with the optimal benefits. “My role in shaping this evolution will include innovation and creating a top organization, working with a team of people aligned on the same vision to create an ecosystem which drives financial and economic inclusion to attain sustainable business gain and through a flexible, scalable and customercentric platform to keep the customers loyal.”