Senior People Partner – Product & Functions

Join our growing People team! We're hiring a Senior People Partner to own the people agenda for our Product organisation and a set of global functions sitting at the centre of how M-KOPA operates

The Impact 🌍

Your leadership will directly shape how we build, retain and grow the engineering talent powering our mission. We've now reached 10 million customers and unlocked $2+ billion in credit across five African markets. This role sits right at the centre of the machine that makes that growth possible.

The Opportunity

💚 Mission-driven HR: Partner with product, design and digital lending leaders building the customer experience for millions, plus our fraud, workplaces, impact and corporate communications and marketing teams

🏆 Global recognition: Join a company named by TIME 100 as one of the world's most influential, and by the Financial Times as Africa's fastest-growing company for 5 consecutive years (2022–2026)

🚀 Scale challenges: Build credibility across a genuinely varied portfolio — creative and iterative teams like product and design sit alongside operational, market-specific, high-stakes teams like fraud and workplaces

🌱 Environmental impact: Work for a carbon-negative company that has displaced over 2 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions

What You'll Do

You'll be a trusted advisor to our product, design and digital lending leaders, aligning people strategy to product delivery and team evolution, while also owning the people agenda for fraud, workplaces, impact and corporate communications and marketing across multiple markets and operating models. It's a portfolio with unusual variety — succeeding here means switching register comfortably and building credibility with very different kinds of leaders, from a design team to a fraud operations team in the same day.

Day to day, you'll:

• Support org design and change: contribute to team transformations, workforce planning and structural change across your client groups

• Build capability in managers: develop the people management standard across your portfolio, from performance conversations to hiring and development

• Scale and retain talent: implement approaches to attract, develop and retain product, design and analytics talent in a competitive market

• Use people analytics to inform action: work with Centres of Excellence and your clients to turn data into insight and insight into action

• Own employee relations: manage cases across your portfolio, working with our ER Centre of Excellence on the complex end

• Embed our culture: reinforce M-KOPA's values at every touchpoint, from performance and development to feedback loops and rituals

Your Environment 💻

• Reporting line: Lead People Partner, Technology — working closely together on the shared technology and product agenda, with real ownership of your own client groups from day one

• Client groups: Product, Design and Digital Lending leadership, plus Fraud, Workplaces, Impact, and Corporate Communications and Marketing

• Population: spans multiple markets and operating models, from globally distributed creative teams to market-specific operational teams

Our Approach

• We expect you to switch register comfortably — building credibility with creative, iterative teams and operational, high-stakes teams in the same portfolio

• We lean on Centres of Excellence for data and specialist ER support, so you can focus on judgement and stakeholder relationships rather than carrying every case alone

• We see this as a role with real ownership from day one, not just a supporting seat

• We expect close collaboration with the Lead People Partner for Technology on the shared technology and product agenda

What You Need

We're looking for someone who has partnered with senior leaders in a scaling technology, fintech or high-growth business, and has owned a portfolio rather than supported one.

Required Experience:

• HR business partnering experience with senior leaders in a scaling technology, fintech or high-growth business, with portfolio ownership

• Exposure to product, design, marketing or analytics teams, and an understanding of how they're built, motivated and retained

• Breadth and adaptability: comfortable moving between very different teams (e.g. a design team and a fraud operations team) in the same day

• Strategic and operational range: comfortable shaping longer-term plans and delivering the day-to-day work that makes them real

• Remote and global savvy: experience supporting cross-cultural teams across multiple regions

• Analytical and advisory instinct: uses data, influence and judgement to advise leaders on trade-offs and risks

• Confident handling employee relations matters across more than one jurisdiction, partnering with an ER Centre of Excellence rather than carrying every case alone (Europe/UK exposure is a plus, not a requirement)

Location & Benefits

• Fully Remote role - Can be Based in the UK or Nigeria

• Reports to the Lead People Partner, Technology

• Room to grow your own scope, with mentorship from a senior partner who owns the wider technology and product portfolio

• Professional development and coaching partnerships

• Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements

• Well-being support and career growth opportunities

Our Mission 🌍

We create financial inclusion for the traditionally excluded through a fair, flexible, customer-centric financing model, driving greater inclusion of women, youth and low-income communities.

Our Impact 💚

• Included 🔓: 10 million customers, $2+ billion in credit unlocked since 2010

• Prosperous 💰: 70% of customers use their M-KOPA product for income generation, 35,000 livelihoods created for sales agents

• Green 🌱: over 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided, with 127,700 circular economy products sold since 2010

Ready to bring breadth and adaptability to a portfolio that shapes how millions of people experience M-KOPA? Apply today!

Why M-KOPA?

At M-KOPA, we empower our people to own their careers through diverse development programs, coaching partnerships, and on-the-job training. We support individual journeys with family-friendly policies, prioritize well-being, and embrace flexibility.

Join us in shaping the future of M-KOPA as we grow together. Explore more at m-kopa.com.

Recognized four times by the Financial Times as one Africa's fastest growing companies (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026), named on CNBC's World’s Top Fintech Companies 2025 & 2026 and by TIME100 Most influential companies in the world 2023 and 2024 , we've served over 10 million customers, unlocking $2 billion in cumulative credit for the everyday earners across Africa, in addition to over 10,000 e-bikes financed in Kenya.

Important Notice

M-KOPA is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer committed to assembling a diverse, broadly trained staff. Women, minorities, and people with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.

M-KOPA explicitly prohibits the use of Forced or Child Labour and respects the rights of its employees to agree to terms and conditions of employment voluntarily, without coercion, and freely terminate their employment on appropriate notice. M-KOPA shall ensure that its Employees are of legal working age and shall comply with local laws for youth employment or student work, such as internships or apprenticeships. 

M-KOPA does not collect/charge any money as a pre-employment or post-employment requirement. This means that we never ask for ‘recruitment fees’, ‘processing fees’, ‘interview fees’, or any other kind of money in exchange for offer letters or interviews at any time during the hiring process.

Applications for this position will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Shortlisting and interviews will take place at any stage during the recruitment process. We reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a suitable candidate is selected before the advertised closing date.

If your application is successful M-KOPA undertakes pre-employment background checks as part of its recruitment process, these include; criminal records, identification verification, academic qualifications, employment dates and employer references.