Retail Operations & Governance Manager at Airtel

Job Purpose

• To act as the Group control tower for retail performance, operations standards and transformation, driving consistent improvement in store productivity, operational efficiency, execution quality, and performance outcomes across Airtel Africa. The role is responsible for improving how the retail business performs, by diagnosing performance gaps, enabling markets, defining standards, and scaling transformation initiatives.

Key duties and responsibilities

Cross-Market Performance Steering

• Own visibility and analysis of retail performance across all OpCos
• Identify underperformance across markets, clusters, and store formats
• Diagnose root causes impacting revenue, conversion, and productivity
• Develop structured performance improvement frameworks and action plans

Market Enablement & Engagement

• Support markets in translating Group priorities into execution plans
• Challenge, support, and track market performance improvements
• Facilitate sharing of best practices across OpCos
• Build a community of performance excellence across markets

Transformation & Productivity Uplift

• Design and lead transformation initiatives focused on:
• Sales productivity improvement
• Store efficiency and cost reduction
• Customer experience enhancement
• Pilot new initiatives and scale across markets
• Drive adoption of innovation and digital enablement in retail

Performance Intelligence & Insights

• Own performance diagnostics and insight generation
• Translate data into actionable business recommendations
• Identify high-performing markets and scale successful practices
• Support leadership with structured performance narratives

Inventory, Cost & Loss Frameworks

• Define Group-level standards for:
• Inventory management
• Stock availability
• Loss prevention
• Cost efficiency
• Monitor cross-market performance on stock-outs, shrinkage, and costs
• Drive improvements in operational efficiency and asset control

Execution Excellence & Governance

• Define execution quality standards across retail operations
• Design audit frameworks and validation tools
• Ensure consistency of execution across markets
• Drive corrective actions based on audit findings

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Business/Analytics, or Operations; MBA preferred.

Experience

• 8–12 years’ experience in retail performance management and operations excellence transformation.
• Proven experience in diagnosing performance issues, designing and scaling operational solutions.
• Experience working across multiple countries or markets is an added advantage.