Regional Public Policy Specialist, East & Southern Africa

What you will be expected to do

• Manage government and policy engagement across East & Southern Africa, building strong relationships with ministries, regulators, customs, and local authorities.
• Advocate for policies that enable trade facilitation, tax/tariff reforms, and local manufacturing/assembly.
• Monitor and analyze regional policy developments (energy, trade, fiscal, and industrial policy), providing early intelligence to support the business.
• Support operations and sales teams by resolving regulatory and administrative barriers.
• Represent the company in government consultations, industry dialogues, and regional trade forums (EAC, SADC, AfCFTA).
• Develop and execute country-level policy engagement strategies aligned with business objectives.
• Draft policy briefs, position papers, and talking points for senior management.

You might be a strong candidate if you have/are

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in economics, public policy, law, international relations, or related field.
• 7–10 years’ experience in government relations, policy advocacy, or trade/investment policy.
• Familiarity with AfCFTA, EAC, and SADC frameworks is very key.
• Proven experience advocating for trade or fiscal incentives (e.g., tax exemptions, customs facilitation, pioneer status).
• Strong track record of engaging with senior policymakers and regulators in ESA.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and diplomacy skills.
• Ability to travel extensively within the region (around 50%).Fluency in English required; Portuguese and/or French is a an added advantage.

Preferred Skills

• Knowledge of renewable energy or consumer goods sectors.
• Familiarity with customs systems and industrial policy in ESA countries.
• Established networks with public officials in the region (including the the energy and finance ministries, as well as customs, revenue, and other relevant regulatory/oversight authorities).
• Political and cultural awareness across diverse ESA contexts.

What Sun King Offers

• Professional growth in a dynamic, rapidly expanding, high-social-impact industry
• An open-minded, collaborative culture made up of enthusiastic colleagues who are driven by the challenge of innovation towards profound impact on people and the planet.
• A truly multicultural experience: you will have the chance to work with and learn from people from different geographies, nationalities, and backgrounds.
• Structured, tailored learning and development programs that help you become a better leader, manager, and professional through the Sun Center for Leadership.

About
Sun King is the world’s leading off-grid solar energy company, combining cutting-edge product design, fintech, and field operations to deliver energy access for the 1.8 billion people who live without an affordable and reliable electric-grid connection.Sun King has built a new kind of energy utility: distributed, green, customer-centric, and affordable. We bring clean, reliable, decentralized energy directly into people’s lives — from solar kits that provide first-time energy access to multi-kilowatt systems that serve both off-grid users and grid-connected customers powering larger homes, schools, hospitals, farms, offices, and light manufacturing.Already, 25 million homes and businesses rely on Sun King for electricity supply and the appliances and services it enables: lighting, televisions, fans, refrigeration, and smartphones. Sun King combines energy generation, energy-efficient appliances, installation, and financing into one seamless offering. Think of it as a distributed utility, designed for wherever energy is needed and designed to scale with its users as incomes and energy needs grow.Sun King makes solar products affordable to low-income households and businesses via ‘pay-as-you-go’ (PAYG) purchase financing. Sun King installs solar after customers pay a small deposit. Customers then make small, manageable payments of as little as US $0.14 a day via mobile money or cash.Instead of paying for expensive, polluting, and health-damaging kerosene for lighting or diesel for power, customers unlock savings through accessing solar power and after one to two years of payments, customers own their solar equipment outright.Sun King collects payments digitally through mobile money systems and its 35,000 field agents — over 1 million payments each day. To date, Sun King has extended more than $1.4 billion in PAYG loans to customers.Sun King began by powering homes and businesses with solar systems delivered through PAYG financing. Now, we’re using the same model to make smartphones and clean cooking equipment affordable: helping households connect to the digital economy and transition from wood-based fuels to modern, sustainable alternatives.Sun King employs 3,500 full-time staff in 14 countries, with specialties spanning product design, data science, logistics, customer service, sales, software, operations, and more — all with a passion to serve off-grid families. Sun King is committed to gender diversity in the workplace. Women represent 42% of Sun King’s workforce.