Head, Economic & Market Research at KCB Bank Kenya

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Strategic Leadership: Set the strategic direction for the research department, aligning analytical outputs with organizational objectives and customer needs.
• Institutionalize Research: Embed research directly into business planning cycles, such as annual budgeting or quarterly product reviews, to ensure every strategic move is grounded in empirical evidence.
• Economic Forecasting: Lead the development and maintenance of econometric models to forecast key variables such as GDP, inflation, interest rates, and foreign exchange. 
• Consumer & Market Intelligence: Build intelligence service to monitor latest trends in consumer health metrics, business financial health frameworks, and emerging market trends to surface insights that inform customer segmentation and engagement strategies.
• Sector & Industry Analysis - Direct deep-dive research into priority sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, energy etc. to identify risks, opportunities, and business implications 
• Scenario Planning: Build detailed narratives for various economic paths to help business leaders to prepare for volatility.
• Decision Support: Provide critical research and risk assessments to internal bodies like the Assets and Liability Committee (ALCO), Credit Committees, and Global Markets. This will be achieved by developing models to simulate how different economic environments affect product demand, credit risk, and portfolio resilience.
• Stakeholder-Specific Outputs: Tailor research to different audiences—providing high-level risk assessments for the Executive Management, tactical pricing signals for the Retail Banking division, and market-entry signals for the Corporate banking teams, etc.
• External Engagement: Act as a public spokesperson, engaging with media, policy think tanks, and international bodies (e.g., IMF, World Bank) to establish the Bank as a thought leader.
• Stakeholder Management: Collaborate across diverse functions and Group subsidiaries to ensure research supports both institutional and retail investor audiences.

MINIMUM POSITION REQUIREMENTS

The preferred candidate will meet the following minimum criteria:

• Hold a Bachelor's Degree in Economics or Financial Economics from a recognized university.
• Professional qualifications in financial or statistical analysis will be an added advantage.
• A Master's degree in Economics is also an added advantage.
• At least 8 years' relevant work experience in Economic research and macroeconomics analysis. Work experience should also include the following specific areas:
• At least 6 years of progressive people management and leadership.
• Company &/or macro modelling, including valuation methodologies.
• Presentation at Economic Fora &/or Advocacy engagements.
• Stakeholder management of varied calibre of stakeholders.
• As an added advantage, work experience in market and consumer intelligence analytics; proficiency in econometric or statistical software e.g. STATA, R, Python, Power BI/Tableau etc