M-Pesa Africa – New Business Manager at Safaricom Kenya

DESCRIPTION

We are pleased to announce the subject career opportunity within Commercial (M-Pesa Africa) reporting to the Senior Manager-Strategy and International expansion.

Role Description

M-Pesa, is a pioneering fintech business and global market leader in mobile money. From starting in 2007 as a convenient means by which the unbanked and underbanked can make digital payments, M-Pesa has now grown to offer >40 million active customers financial services, enterprise, merchant, and retail solutions. We are proud of our work in enabling the digital economy in our markets, and in driving financial inclusion.

The Commercial Team works with the M-Pesa leadership across our 7 OpCos to co-create the product strategy, drive thought leadership, design new products, and features, set commercial priorities with the engineering teams, and lead business development for strategic multi-country partnership opportunities.

Your role will be to support the International expansion business. This will involve building a pipeline of strategic partners for international expansion, managing the sales lifecycle, sourcing relevant reports, and analyzing press releases on market developments and regulatory changes.

You will have interim accountability and responsibility for other members of the implementation team as the international expansion business scales. You will run the business development process, build relationships with strategic partners and act as the initial face on MPA to negotiate commercial terms.

Why this role is tailored for you

An autonomous role that will allow you to define the product roadmap, define pricing and GMT strategy as primary responsibilities and influence buy-in of this strategy at the senior leadership level-you will be the mini CEO.

As the new business manager, during the implementation phase, you will define what the business would look like, find the right partners to collaborate with until the new business scales up.

Key Role Responsibilities

Develop international expansion pipeline

• Conduct market research to understand market trends in selected countries and identify potential strategic partners for international expansion
• Cultivate strong relationships with key stakeholders
• Support Senior Management Team in developing MPESA Africa brand positioning
• Craft business development messaging and develop pitch materials
• Help develop the B2B branding
• Lead sales process and manage the product roadmap

Collaborate with cross-functional teams to manage the partnership development process

• Work closed with leaders across technology and legal to execute international expansion strategy 
• Refine international expansion strategy (fine-tune initial definition)
• Support in developing a client service model
• Manage discovery and due diligence process for the target organization
• Assist with drafting business plans, presentations, reference material, and other documents required
• Strategic stakeholders include regulatory bodies, MNO’s (Mobile Network Operators), and mobile money license holders in target countries.

Key commercial client contact for new market post-launch

• Interim accountability and responsibility for other members of implementation team as international expansion business scales
• Be part of the entire lifecycle of the new business
• Primary responsibility to define the product roadmap, define pricing and GTM strategy
• Develop key in-country commercial partnerships
• CVM oversight and idea generation

QUALIFICATIONS

Apply if you have:

• Bachelor’s degree required, a Master’s degree in a related field preferred
• Over 5 years of professional experience in business development, corporate development (Mobile money or Telco experience)
• Newmarket entry experience in the region
• Experience leading cross-functional teams
• Understanding of financial services/ mobile regulatory environment across Africa and future direction of regulation
• Fluency in a foreign language (French and Portuguese preferred)

We are happy if you have:

• Experience with emerging market consumers, and multicultural sensitivity
• Analytical bent of mind, a structured thinker with strong business acumen
• Results-driven self-starter
• Ability to manage multiple projects concurrently

What you can expect from us:

• We believe in a fair and robust interview process
• We have a robust flexible total reward scheme
• Dedicated support and mentoring/coaching
• Opportunity to develop and progress – plus a solid dedication to work-life integration. It all means you’ll have everything you need to advance your career and achieve your full potential.

Note to Applicants

As part of our recruitment process, we will request the below documentation which will be required as soft copies at a later stage of the process.

• An updated CV with a confirmation of three referees- 2 must be professional and must have supervised you at some point, the other referee can be a colleague in the same professional field. If the referees are within the same organization that you are working with, you will need to confirm to us that it’s okay to contact them in writing (via email). This also includes all references within the Human Resources department.
• Scanned copy of certificate of good conduct from the CID (Less than 1-year-old) - Applicable to Kenyans Only
• Scanned copy of certificate from Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) – Applicable to Kenyans Only
• Scanned copy of University Certificate
• Scanned copy of your National ID / Passport-Legal Form of Identification