Lead People Partner

Join our expanding People team! We're hiring a Lead People Partner to own the people agenda for Kenya - M-KOPA's oldest and largest market, as we scale toward serving even more Every Day Earners across the continent.

The Impact

Your work will directly shape how Kenya's leadership team builds, retains, and develops the people powering our largest market. We've recently celebrated reaching 10 million customers and are onboarding 10,000 new customers every day across all our markets. Behind every one of those numbers is a team of people, and you'll be the strategic partner ensuring that team is set up to keep scaling. It's your chance to be part of something that's literally transforming lives across an entire continent 🌍

The Opportunity

🎯 Mission-driven People work : Your org design and workforce decisions directly support the infrastructure that gets financial inclusion to Every Day Earners at scale

🏆 Global recognition : Join a company named a TIME 100 company and recognised by the Financial Times as one of Africa's fastest-growing companies for five consecutive years (2022–2026)

🚀 Scale challenges : Kenya is our oldest and largest market - you'll be solving people problems at a scale most People Partners never get access to

🌱 Purpose-built culture : M-KOPA's 2,300+ employees and 35,000+ agents are the backbone of a business built to serve 10 million customers - you'll help keep that engine running as it grows

What You'll Do

At M-KOPA, you'll be the strategic advisor to Kenya's leadership team on org design, workforce planning, and business-aligned people strategy. You'll own talent review, performance calibration, and succession planning for the Kenya client group - not just running frameworks, but building them. You'll lead employee relations resolution and act as the escalation point for the market, ensuring consistent compliance with Kenyan labor law. And you'll drive organizational change initiatives - restructuring, transformations, and cross-functional project delivery as Kenya's people function matures alongside the business.

What You Need

Essential Requirements:

8+ years of progressive HR/People Partner experience, including 3–6+ years advising director-level or above executives inside fast-growth, matrixed organizations

Working knowledge of Kenyan labor law and the regulatory environment, with direct experience handling employee relations escalations end to end

Demonstrated experience designing and executing org design, workforce planning, or succession strategy, with evidence of having built a framework

The opportunity

This is the seat to take if you want scope beyond a standard People Partner brief. You'd own the people agenda for M-KOPA's largest, oldest, and most established market, with direct access to Kenya's leadership team - real influence over org design and workforce strategy.

The team is growing in scope and complexity, and this role has real room to expand as that happens. For someone who's spent years advising senior leaders and wants a shot at broader ownership, this is a well-resourced, high-visibility seat inside a fintech operating at real scale across Africa.

Location & Benefits

Full-time, hybrid role in Kenya

Direct access to and partnership with Kenya's leadership team

Collaboration with a global People team across Africa and Europe

Professional development and coaching partnerships

Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements