This is the long form. The short form lives on the work page. — Femi
Femi Siji-Kenneth
Group Product Manager · Payments & Fintech
Toronto, ON · oluwafemiakinseye@gmail.com · linkedin.com/in/ifemora
Summary
I work in payments because payments is one of the few software domains where the seam between what's promised and what actually happens is unforgiving. Ten years of it now: card issuing, payment gateways, corporate banking, and the long tail of operational tools that keep all three running. I've hired the people who ran these systems and grown product managers from associate to lead level. My method hasn't changed since my first product job: go to where the customer is (I once crossed 29 states to sit with the farmers and field technicians using my product), work shoulder to shoulder with design, and ship in small iterations, because growth compounds from little changes more often than it arrives in big launches. I've also stayed close enough to the code to ship prototypes myself in Claude Code, which means the CV that follows is less a list of jobs than a record of what I've cared about.
Experience
Lead Product Manager · Marqeta
Sep 2025 – Present · Toronto, ON (Remote)
Owns a four-product portfolio (Resolve, the contact-center support platform; Marqeta Dashboard; Marqeta IVR; and Identity & Access Management) for a global card-issuing platform processing billions in payment volume.
Led Resolve from concept to production in under five months: a purpose-built cardholder support portal designed side by side with the design team, informed by direct observation of agent workflows during Coinbase program support.
Growing Resolve release by release, not one big launch, into a platform spanning debit, credit, and prepaid programs: payments and collections, disputes, fraud management, and account sub-status management in a single tool.
Championing Resolve's credit expansion: FCRA disputes, collections/delinquency workflows, credit bureau reporting, and TCPA compliance.
Built the automated testing workflow exclusively using Claude Code and Playwright in Terminal.
Presented Resolve's product vision and roadmap to cross-functional leadership across Credit, Operations, and Engineering. Created demo content for BPO transition stakeholders.
Re-imagining the Marqeta Dashboard for enterprise program managers: defining product narrative and KPIs for cardholder lifecycle management and settlement tracking.
Leading the design of a central, immutable audit log compliant with PCI DSS, GLBA, and SOC 2, framed as a platform-wide capability.
Owning Identity & Access Management on Auth0, a multi-persona product balancing program administrators, developers, and support agents. Spans user-access management tooling and credential lifecycle (Self-Service Credential API provisioning). Also managing IVR improvements, including AI agent management.
Product Lead, Corporate Banking Solutions · First City Monument Bank
Oct 2024 – Sep 2025 · Across three time zones (Canada, UK, Nigeria)
Led digital transformation of corporate banking across Nigeria and the UK: corporate internet banking, admin tools, core banking (Finacle/Fineract), API architecture, payroll, remittances, FX/trade management. Managed five direct reports across multiple product lines.
Built and led a team of five PMs: hiring APMs and scoping their features to grow them into full PMs, recruiting Senior PMs who advanced to Lead. One mentee eventually became Head of Products for the Retail Banking division.
Directed the vision, execution, and successful launch of the CIB platform from scratch, serving 50,000+ SME and enterprise clients across both markets. Streamlined bulk transfers, bill payments, payroll, and FX operations.
Launched payroll management, FX & trade management, and Rova Business, a business remittance platform serving SME cross-border payments and the gig economy.
Redesigned corporate client onboarding based on drop-off analysis and direct feedback from enterprise treasurers, achieving a 40% reduction in time-to-value. Managed KYC/AML integrations and regulatory compliance across both markets.
Introduced real-time analytics dashboards for corporate treasurers, improving client retention and platform stickiness while maintaining consumer-grade UX under strict banking regulations.
Managed core payment methods and strategic merchant solutions for Africa's leading payment gateway.
Conceptualized the "Pay with Airtime" micro-transactions product and drove it to ₦14B (~$30M USD) in annualized transaction volume within 12 months. Payment-flow conversion +17%.
Led the end-to-end launch of Direct Debit for recurring revenue collection: Central Bank compliance, UX optimization for high-frequency transactions.
Executed strategic expansion into the airline vertical, delivering a $7M revenue-driving campaign. Owned product enhancements for high-volume airline ticketing and managed key industry stakeholder relationships.
Reduced merchant support tickets by 13% through proactive product improvements and better documentation.
Product Manager · Farmcrowdy (Techstars Toronto alum)
Feb 2019 – Jun 2021 · Lagos, Nigeria
First product hire at the company. Owned the entire product portfolio across mobile (iOS and Android) and web platforms. Field-service software serving distinct personas at once: farmers in the field, the technicians supporting them, and the buyers on the other end.
Managed three mobile products (Farmers App, Farmcrowdy Foods, Meathub), scaling the Farmers App to 200,000+ users.
Grew a greenfield vertical from 3,200 to 25,000 users in under six months against a 12-month mandate, through steady, compounding iteration rather than a single launch.
Conducted user research across 29 Nigerian states, travelling physically to farms to interview the farmers and field technicians using the product, and fed it directly into roadmap, pricing, and UI design. Built financial models and vendor management workflows.
Education
Nigerian University of Technology and Management
Post-Graduate Diploma, Technology, Design & Entrepreneurship · MasterCard Foundation Scholar
2021
University of Lagos
Bachelor of Science, Mass Communication · CGPA 4.22/5 (Top 3% of class)