Job Description

What we’re looking for;

In keeping with our current business needs, we are looking for a person who meets the criteria indicated below

Reporting to the Chief Financial Services Officer, the role purpose is as highlighted below;

The Next Gen Fintech Lead owns the end-to-end strategy, commercial performance, and product portfolio for M-PESA's next-generation financial solutions — including digital savings, investments, wealth management, and emerging fintech propositions. The role drives growth, adoption, and profitability by translating market opportunities into scalable, platform-led products that advance customer financial empowerment.

Operating at the intersection of innovation, regulation, and commercial delivery, the Next Gen Fintech Lead partners with Technology, Risk, Data, and Marketing to bring differentiated fintech experiences to market at pace — building the capabilities and culture that ensure M-PESA leads the next era of African fintech. Reporting to the Chief Financial Services Officer, the role champions customer-centricity, agile execution, and operational excellence, leveraging advanced analytics and digital platforms to maximise adoption, engagement, and customer lifetime value.

Reporting to the Chief Financial Services Officer, the role provides strategic leadership in scaling and optimizing next generation fintech portfolios while innovating to meet evolving customer needs and market dynamics. The role champions customer centricity, agile execution, and operational excellence, leveraging advanced analytics, personalization, and digital platforms to maximize adoption, engagement, and customer lifetime value.

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

Anchored in Safaricom’s purpose of Transforming Lives, the role ensures next generation fintech solutions deliver inclusive growth, superior customer experiences, and sustainable long term value for customers and the broader ecosystem.

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

How to apply If you feel that you are up to the challenge and possess the necessary qualification and experience, kindly click on the apply button. Remember to attach your resume

Safaricom is the leading technology company in East Africa. Our purpose is to transform lives by connecting people to people, people to opportunities and people to information. We keep over 60 million customers connected across Kenya and Ethiopia, and play a critical role in the society, supporting over 1.13 million jobs both directly and indirectly while our total economic value was estimated at KES 1.1 trillion ($ 8.5 billion) for the 12 months through March 2025.

Listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange and with annual revenues of close to KES 388 billion as at March 2025, Safaricom provides connectivity through wide range of technology. Our 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G network in aggregate covers over 99% of Kenya’s population.

We run the world’s largest mobile payment system and Africa’s largest Fintech, M-PESA, the world’s first mobile money transfer system. By empowering millions of customers to transact, save or borrow money through their mobile phone, M-PESA has driven financial inclusion in Kenya to 84.8% of the adult population in 2024, from a low of 26.7% in 2006, and generated over KES 161 billion in revenue as at FY25.

Our subsidiary, Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia, has deployed world class network and services to contribute to Ethiopia’s digital transformation.

Safaricom is an equal opportunity employer, actively recruiting staff from different backgrounds reflecting the communities that we serve. We are committed to equal gender representation at all levels.

As part of our ongoing commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we continue to work towards improving energy and resource efficiency in our network and facilities to reduce carbon emissions and our fuel consumption. We remain committed to becoming a Net Zero carbon-emitting company by 2050.