Next Gen Fintech lead at Safaricom Kenya

The role holder will:

• Define the strategy and long-term vision for next generation fintech solutions in line with Financial Services objectives
• Own end to end portfolio performance across digital savings, investments, and emerging fintech propositions
• Drive continuous product innovation and digital enablement through platform led and agile delivery models
• Champion customer centric experiences through personalization, analytics, and seamless digital journeys
• Leverage data and insights to optimize adoption, engagement, pricing, and customer lifetime value
• Ensure robust risk management, regulatory compliance, and governance across all fintech solutions
• Enable effective cross functional and ecosystem collaboration to deliver integrated outcomes
• Lead people and capability development to build high performing, future ready teams

Key accountabilities and decision ownership:

Strategy & Vision Leadership

• Define the end-to-end strategy and long-term vision for next-generation fintech solutions and insurance, aligned to Financial Services objectives.
• Translate enterprise strategy into clear, executable roadmaps — identifying new growth opportunities across digital savings, insurance, investments, and emerging fintech.
• Prioritise investments based on value, risk, and scalability, driving market leadership through differentiated propositions.

Fintech Portfolio Management

• Own end-to-end performance of the fintech portfolio — wealth (digital savings, investments, and digital assets), insurance  — including P&L, pricing, and value proposition design.
• Drive sustainable profitability and portfolio growth while monitoring adoption, usage, and customer lifetime value (CLV).
• Optimise product mix and bundling, taking corrective action on underperforming products decisively.

Product Innovation & Digital Enablement

• Lead development of next-generation, wealth, insurance and digital solutions; incubate new fintech models and platform-led propositions.
• Leverage emerging technologies to enhance customer experiences and drive rapid innovation through agile product development.
• Transition successful pilots into scalable, production-grade offerings within defined time-to-market targets.

Digital Products & Platforms Leadership

• Own the digital product roadmap and platform architecture, ensuring scalable, API-led capabilities underpin the fintech portfolio.
• Partner with Fintech Platforms Product & Innovation Lead to deliver reusable infrastructure that accelerates speed-to-market
• Embed UX excellence and reliability standards across all digital touchpoints.

Risk, Compliance & Governance

• Own the governance framework for all fintech innovations — ensuring regulatory compliance, risk controls, and audit readiness are embedded by design, not afterthought.
• Partner with the Risk, Compliance & Governance Lead to define risk appetite thresholds and manage operational, financial, and conduct risks.
• Engage proactively with regulators, balancing innovation speed with control and resilience.

Customer-Centricity & Data

• Champion customer-first design across all products; embed personalisation, segmentation, and contextual engagement.
• Leverage advanced analytics to drive decision-making — using data to optimise product performance, refine targeting, and enable predictive insights for growth.
• Partner with Data teams to scale analytical capabilities and improve customer lifetime value.

Ecosystem Partnerships

• Lead and manage the Ecosystem Partnerships function, building and governing strategic relationships with fintechs, platforms, and third-party providers.
• Enable integrated delivery across tribes and squads; resolve cross-functional dependencies.

People Leadership & Capability Development

• Lead and inspire high performing, multidisciplinary teams
• Build deep expertise in fintech, wealth, insurance and digital finance
• Develop future leaders through coaching and succession planning
• Foster a culture of innovation, agility, and ownership
• Drive performance management and accountability
• Support continuous learning and capability uplift

Agile Leadership & Delivery Governance

• Lead empowered cross-functional squads aligned to shared OKRs, with clearly defined decision rights, accountability structures, and escalation protocols.
• Champion iterative delivery and hypothesis-driven experimentation, balancing execution speed with regulatory, risk, and operational guardrails.
• Enable transparent progress tracking through sprint reviews and performance rituals, fostering a culture of ownership and outcome-based performance.

Key performance indicators:

Financial & Commercial

• Next Gen Fintech revenue growth: achieve >20% YoY growth
• Assets Under Management (AUM): grow by 15% YOY

Customer & Product

• Customer adoption and activation rate: achieve 30% monthly activation rate for digital savings and investment products, tracked by segment.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): deliver 10% uplift in CLV for active next-gen fintech customers year-on-year.
• Product penetration rate: achieve 30% penetration of key next-gen fintech products within target segments.

Delivery & Operations

• Time-to-market: deliver new propositions from approved concept to MVP within 90 days; full production within 180 days.
• Digital engagement: achieve 20% monthly active usage across next-gen fintech products.

Governance & Compliance

• Zero critical regulatory or audit findings across the fintech portfolio in any review period
• Portfolio performance and risk governance: all material risks escalated and resolved within defined SLA.

Must have technical / professional qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Business Administration, Technology, or a closely related discipline from a recognized institution.
• Postgraduate qualification such as an MBA or Master’s degree in Finance, Strategy, Innovation, or Digital Transformation is strongly preferred.
• 12+ years of progressive experience in financial services, fintech, digital banking or investment products, with exposure to large scale portfolios.
• Demonstrated senior leadership experience managing multidisciplinary teams and leading managers within complex, fast paced environments.
• Proven track record of designing, launching, and scaling digital and platform led financial solutions, ideally within ecosystem or partnership driven models.
• Solid understanding of fintech innovation, emerging technologies, and digital platforms, with the ability to translate innovation into commercial value.
• Sound knowledge of regulatory, compliance, risk, and governance frameworks applicable to fintech solutions within regulated environments
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, with experience driving growth, profitability,pricing optimization, and customer lifetime value.
• Advanced analytical and strategic thinking capabilities, with the ability to leverage data, insights, and customer analytics to inform decision making and execution