Finergi is a fintech scaling access to prepaid electricity and mobile financial services across Africa. Part of the Optasia Group (JSE: OPA), we partner with utilities, mobile network operators, banks and payment providers to put credit and power in the hands of the people who need it — Light On. Credit On. Future On.
As we grow across multiple markets, the volume and complexity of our commercial agreements is growing with us. We're looking for a Legal Counsel to be the person who makes those deals watertight, repeatable and fast.
About the roleYou'll be the legal engine behind our commercial expansion — drafting and negotiating the agreements that bring new partners live, and building the frameworks and systems that let us do it again and again without starting from scratch each time.
Day to day, you'll draft and negotiate MOUs and commercial agreements with utilities, banks, MNOs, aggregators and other partners; support tenders and proposals as they come up; and develop reusable legal frameworks that can be adapted across deals and markets. You'll also put in place proper systems for tracking, filing and managing our contracts — and lead on using AI to streamline how legal work gets done.
You'll report to the Chief Legal and Strategy Officer and work hand-in-hand with our Commercial and Finance teams.
What you'll do- Draft, review and negotiate MOUs and commercial agreements with utilities, banks, MNOs, aggregators and other partners
- Support tenders and proposals as needed, providing legal input on structure, risk and terms
- Develop reusable legal frameworks, templates and playbooks that can be applied across multiple deals and markets
- Design and embed systems for contract tracking, filing and management, so nothing slips and everything is easy to find
- Lead the use of AI tools to streamline drafting, review and other legal workflows
- Work closely with the Commercial and Finance teams to keep deals moving and commercially aligned
- Help identify and manage legal and regulatory risk across our markets
- A qualified lawyer with solid experience (typically 5+ years) in commercial or corporate law, ideally including in-house experience
- A strong drafting and negotiation background, with a track record on commercial agreements and MOUs
- Experience with commercial partnerships in sectors such as fintech, payments, telecoms/MNO, energy/utilities or financial services
- A practical, structured mindset — you like turning one-off work into reusable frameworks and clean systems
- Comfort operating across multiple jurisdictions and multi-stakeholder deals
- Strong collaboration skills and the ability to work closely with commercial and finance colleagues
- Excellent written and spoken English
- Genuine enthusiasm for using AI and modern tools to make legal work faster and better
- Experience across African markets or emerging markets more broadly
- French — an advantage for our Francophone markets
- Experience setting up or running contract lifecycle management (CLM) or similar systems
- A high-impact role reporting to the Chief Legal and Strategy Officer, with room to shape how legal works here from the ground up
- The chance to build modern, AI-enabled legal frameworks and systems, not just react to deal flow
- Backed by a listed group (Optasia, JSE: OPA) — the stability of scale with the pace of a fast-growing business
- A genuinely cross-functional seat, close to the Commercial and Finance teams and the deals that matter
Finergi is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds.
Skills Required
- Qualified lawyer (admitted to practice)
- Typically 5+ years' experience in commercial or corporate law
- In-house legal experience
- Strong drafting and negotiation experience on commercial agreements and MOUs
- Experience with commercial partnerships in fintech, payments, telecoms/MNO, energy/utilities or financial services
- Practical, structured mindset with ability to create reusable frameworks and systems
- Comfort operating across multiple jurisdictions and multi-stakeholder deals
- Strong collaboration skills with commercial and finance teams
- Excellent written and spoken English
- Enthusiasm for using AI and modern legal tools
- Experience across African or other emerging markets
- French language skills
- Experience setting up or running contract lifecycle management (CLM) systems
What We Do
We deliver Optasia, the AI Platform enabling financial access for the next billion customers. We are changing the world our way. Α versatile, data-driven B2B2X (business-to-business-to-customers and SMEs) financial technology platform for MNOs, mobile wallet operators and financial institutions, which provides them with accurate credit scoring for responsible financing decision-making. We support intelligent credit decisions, enable a broad range of financial services development and drive successful business models. All with ease, through our AI-led fully-automated decisioning algorithm, which allows us to efficiently make millions of decisions on financing, based on sophisticated data analysis. Thanks to our technology and network we provide powerful flywheel effects with repeatable and scalable growth levers, to help our partners grow and enable financial access to retail & SME customers across numerous markets. Operating since 2012 as Channel VAS and expanded in more than 35 countries in Africa, Middle East, Asia and LATAM with focus in emerging markets, Optasia Enabling credit decisions for an average of 116 million customers a month and had more than 980 million addressable subscribers in 2023, continuing to expand to new markets globally. Optasia has been chosen as an investment opportunity by top firms such as Abu Dhabi's Waha Capital in 2017, and Ethos, a leading South African investment company in late 2018. The company also obtained ISO 27001 Certification in late 2021. Founded as Channel VAS in 2012, we became Optasia in 2022, incorporating a brand identity that more broadly reflects our capabilities.
