M-Pesa Africa - Senior Specialist - Legal & Regulatory Affairs at Safaricom Kenya

About the Role

As the Senior Specialist - Legal and Regulatory Affairs for the M-Pesa Africa Group (MPA), you will support the Executive Head, Legal & Regulatory Affairs in providing comprehensive legal services to MPA and key stakeholders across the group. You will liaise with Vodafone Group, Vodacom Group, Safaricom Group, and local market teams to ensure compliance with all relevant laws and regulations across the various African markets. Your responsibilities will include developing and implementing legal policies and procedures in line with MPA’s corporate strategy, providing legal guidance on contracts, legislative compliance, litigation, employment law, intellectual property, and corporate governance. You will establish and maintain effective legal processes to ensure timely delivery of business documentation and standardized forms, and support management and staff with legal advice, preparing legal opinions, advisories, and briefs. Additionally, you will oversee the litigation process, liaise with external counsel, and ensure the protection of the business's interests through proper record-keeping and governance practices. You will conduct internal legal compliance audits, manage intellectual property assets, and provide legislative updates, collaborating with the regulatory and public policy team to protect the business's interests. Your role will also involve representing MPA in negotiations, disputes, and consultations, ensuring that all outsourced legal services meet agreed commercial and contractual terms.

Responsibilities

Key Legal and Regulatory accountabilities and decision ownership:

• Support in developing the Legal mission and strategy.
• Provide legal guidance on a wide range of legal matters such as contracts, legislative compliance, litigation, employment law, intellectual property and corporate governance.
• Undertake internal legal compliance audits with the internal audit and risk teams, ensuring recommendations are disseminated and implemented.
• Provide legal advisory services to MPA to ensure statutory compliance with the existing law and regulatory requirements.
  Establish and maintain effective legal processes to ensure the timely delivery of all required business documentation and foster the development of standardized documentation.
• With support from the Executive Head, Legal and Regulatory, provide legal advice to management and staff in all areas of MPA’s activities and in proffering solutions to legal problems, constraints, risks, options, consequences, and approaches, preparing legal opinions, advisories, and briefs.
•  Vet and draft legal documents including contracts and leases.
•  Liaise with external lawyers in MPA markets in handling legal matters on behalf of MPA.
• Draft, review and update the existing templates, and draft new templates to ensure suitability in line with changing business needs.
• Design and implement in conjunction with Risk Management, Cyber Security, Internal Audit and all other relevant teams, clear pre-contractual vetting processes for potential MPA partnerships to ensure that due diligence is done on all partners and all the required clearance by MPA policies and procedures are met.
• Implement the changing Risk Control measures recommended for the MPA Risk & Compliance, Cyber Security, Internal Audit and all other relevant teams and relevant Business stakeholders, through enforcement of contracts and any other mechanism within the legal ambient and mandate. This is to be done in conjunction with the respective teams.
• Liaise with Vodafone & Vodacom Group Legal stakeholders on delivery of joint targets in relation to the legal relationship between Safaricom and Vodafone on M-PESA related matters e.g. Trademark matters, M-PESA managed service agreements, IMT (international money transfer) agreements.
• Lead the support on all commercial and corporate transactional and corporate structuring matters including reviewing of the engagements, advising on the legal structuring and execution as well as implementing and delivery of these transactions including the documentation, board approvals and regulatory approvals.
• Lead on all property related engagements, advising and undertaking the legal aspects.
• Liaise with the external counsel in markets to deliver projects within projected timelines, agreed budget guardrails, and expected quality, ensuring the interests of the business are upheld.
• Define scope and deliverables in terms of time, cost, quality, and business benefit.
• Schedule activities and identify resource needs, dependencies, and synergies.
• Evaluates progress, mitigates risks and addresses issues.
• Assist to Develop and implement regulatory strategies to ensure compliance with all local and international regulatory requirements.
• Embed regulatory considerations in Group commercial product development to ensure product alignment with regulatory requirements in deployment markets.

Group regulatory governance and reporting

• Act as a key interface between the Executive Head, Legal & Regulatory Affairs and other departments within the organization.

Regional and sub-regional institutions engagement

• Provide regulatory support on matters being worked on by regional and sub-regional institutions (i.e. ITU, ATU, SADC, CRASA, COMESA, EAC) to secure regulatory decisions and minimize risk. Notably focus on Mobile Financial Services and Taxation Regulation.

Qualifications

Core Competencies:

• Strategic Thinking: Long-term vision and the ability to think strategically.
• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical abilities to understand complex legal concepts and translate them into practical processes, guidance, and training for non-lawyers to help achieve MPA’s mission and commercial targets.
• Influencing Skills: High influencing capabilities to shape decisions and outcomes.
• Relationship Building & Communication: Ability to build strong relationships and communicate effectively with diverse groups of people.
• Leadership & Stakeholder Management: Excellent leadership skills and experience advising senior management and boards on complex, international work. Strong stakeholder management.
• Cultural Sensitivity: Ability to work effectively across diverse cultures.
• Industry Knowledge: Strong knowledge of Mobile Money, Merchant Payment, Financial Services, and Digital landscapes.
• Legal Guidance Expertise: Provide legal guidance on a wide range of legal matters such as contracts and legislative issues.
• Litigation Reporting: Prepare weekly status reports to update the Executive Head, Legal & Regulatory Affairs on all litigation, contentious, and potentially contentious matters related to MPA.

Must-Have Technical and/or Professional Qualifications and Experience:

• Education: Degree in Law from a reputable university.
• Bar Admission: Admission to the Bar of Kenya/South Africa with 5+ years post-admission experience, or if under 5 years, demonstrable experience in a top-tier law firm or as in-house counsel in a FinTech or technology company.
• Advocacy: Advocate of the High Court of Kenya/South Africa with at least 5 years standing.
• Additional Qualifications: Post-graduate diplomas or certificate courses in relevant legal and regulatory matters such as Arbitration, Mediation & Negotiation Skills, AML, IP, Legislative Processes, and Drafting.
• Legal Experience: At least 5 years’ practical post-qualification experience in commercial law, company law, and financial services law.
• Industry Knowledge: Excellent working knowledge of technology, telecommunications, and the financial services industry, along with the legal and regulatory environment within these sectors.
• Civil & Criminal Procedure Knowledge: Proven knowledge of civil and criminal procedure codes.
• Regulatory Engagement: Proven experience in engaging with regulatory bodies is preferred.