Credit and Risk Manager

Our Pitch – Who We Are

MoPhones is on a mission to empower Africans with high-quality, premium smartphones that do not break the bank. By combining a trusted online marketplace, local retail presence, and integrated financing, MoPhones makes renewed devices accessible, affordable, and better for the planet through circular, lower-waste models.

At MoPhones, everything we do is guided by three values: Authenticity, Ownership, and Focus.

1. Authenticity We build trust through honesty, transparency, and real care. From clear pricing and fair policies to dependable, renewed devices, we stand behind what we promise and treat every customer with dignity.
2. Ownership We take responsibility for outcomes. When customers choose MoPhones, they should never feel alone, we solve problems end-to-end, stand behind our products, and take pride in delivering excellent work.
3. Focus We prioritise what matters most: making high-quality smartphones accessible and affordable. We stay disciplined about simplicity, impact, and solutions that expand access to technology across our communities.

The team works with leading refurbishers and a growing network of sales agents and outlets to bring warrantied devices and flexible instalment plans to customers across Kenya, with ambitions to scale across Africa. The culture is mission-driven, data-informed, and deeply performance-oriented, with a strong bias toward ownership, coaching, and experimentation.

Why This Role Exists

MoPhones operates at the intersection of e-commerce, device financing, and consumer credit. Credit is the core product and credit quality is the primary determinant of unit economics. 

Because our customers’ repayment behaviour and lifecycle drive both risk and revenue, this role combines classic credit risk ownership with strong customer value management and portfolio optimisation responsibilities.

This role is the critical bridge between the Group Credit risk strategy and in-market execution — ensuring that Group policy is implemented consistently, that portfolio performance delivers against agreed objectives, and that the OpCo’s management team functions as a reliable partner.

As part of the OpCo management team, the Credit Risk Manager translates Group strategy into daily execution, collaborates with the local credit operations team, and owns the relationships with external partners.

About the Role

The Kenya Credit Risk Manager reports to the Group Director of Credit Risk. You are responsible for translating Group policy into local execution, owning portfolio performance, and managing the country's external credit risk partner relationships. You own the country‑level credit outcomes and sit within the Kenya senior management team (SMT)

1. Execution: driving local initiatives to successful results— whether that is implementing a new underwriting model or redesigning a sales incentive structure. You work closely with the wider Kenya senior management team to ensure the right balance between growth ambition and credit quality is maintained at all times.
2. Monitoring: overseeing the performance of the credit operations and retail teams against agreed credit objectives. You need to be enough in the details that when performance deviates from expectation, you are responsible for ensuring a disciplined, evidence-based investigation follows. You know when an outcome reflects a policy gap, an execution failure, or an external shock, and act accordingly.

This is a manager role with specialist direct reports. You are expected to operate with high autonomy, communicate credit clearly to non-technical stakeholders, including the Country General Manager, and know when to escalate to Group Credit Risk versus solve locally.

Key Responsibilities

Country Credit Leadership

• Enforce Group credit policy locally, ensuring decisions are applied consistently across all channels and partners.

• Own and maintain country‑level SOPs, playbooks, and training for credit, keeping them current as products, partners, and risk appetite evolve.

• Lead relationships with key credit risk partners (credit bureaus, collectors, fraud investigators), ensuring SLAs, data quality, and outcomes meet MoPhones’ standards.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Oversee the recovery performance of Credit Operations, defining clear escalation paths, treatments, and KPIs across internal teams and external agencies.

• Shape the target market with Marketing to improve Quality of Gross Adds (QGA), optimising the balance between approval rate, credit risk, and unit economics.

• Influence commercial levers (pricing, deposits, fate‑guide rules) to deliver profitable growth within the agreed credit risk appetite.

• Translate local needs into product & data requirements, working with Product, Data, and Tech to ensure CRM/LSM tools, reports, and scorecards actually support frontline decisions.

Execution and Oversight

• Design, test, and implement lifecycle management and early‑warning campaigns that improve both retention and credit performance (e.g. cure rates, roll‑rates).

• Own day‑to‑day performance of the Kenya credit portfolio, across both inputs (credit ops, sales behaviour, funnel metrics) and outputs (roll‑rates, NPL, recoveries).

• Produce, interpret, and present regular portfolio performance packs to the Country Manager and Group Director of Credit Risk, with clear narrative, drivers, and actions.

• Detect and resolve emerging credit risk issues fast, driving structured root‑cause analysis and concrete remediation plans through the Kenya management team

What We Are Looking For

We are interested in candidates who have grown up in CVM/ portfolio roles and are hungry to own full credit outcomes in a lending/device‑financing context, with a positive impact on the environment

Required

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in operational roles within Customer Value Management (e.g. Telco), Product Management (e.g. Fintech) or Credit risk management, preferably within consumer or device financing, microfinance, or fintech lending in emerging markets.

• Proven track record of building and implementing credit/churn and retention/lifecycle management frameworks — not just designing them, but owning day-to-day execution across stakeholders

• Strong stakeholder management and experience managing dotted teams (collections agencies, fraud prevention partners, external credit bureaus).

• Demonstrated ability to communicate analytical findings to non-technical stakeholders in writing and in person.

• Ability to translate analytics into operational action and monitor relative implementation

Nice to have

• Comfort with modelling tools (SQL, Python, or equivalent) is a plus

• Experience working with collections or fraud teams (or the appetite to quickly upskill in these areas) is a plus.

How you work

• Execution-first mindset: you are a builder and an operator, not just an advisor.

• High integrity: you are comfortable making credit calls that have real financial consequences.

• Adaptable to a fast-paced, scaling fintech environment where policy and process evolve rapidly.