Senior People Partner

About M-KOPA

M-KOPA is a mission-driven fintech company transforming lives across Africa by providing access to smartphones, digital loans, and essential services. Our work directly impacts over 23 million lives, enabling families to access education, grow businesses, and build financial resilience. As a carbon-negative company that has displaced over 2 million tonnes of carbon emissions, we're committed to creating sustainable impact.

We're looking for an experienced People Partner to drive our people agenda across South Africa while leading global people programming initiatives. Reporting to the HR Director for Markets, you'll be a strategic advisor to South Africa's leadership team and a key contributor to M-KOPA's talent strategy across all markets.

What You Will Do

Strategic Partner to South Africa Leadership

• Serve as trusted advisor to the South Africa General Manager and functional leaders, aligning people strategies with business priorities and market growth objectives.

• Partner with leadership to tackle organizational challenges and deliver innovative people solutions that drive business performance.

• Use people analytics to track key metrics, identify trends, and provide actionable insights that inform strategic decision-making

Drive Talent Excellence & Organizational Development

• Design and implement talent strategies for attraction, development, and retention across all South Africa functions.

• Lead organizational design initiatives, workforce planning, and succession strategies to support business scaling.

• Facilitate talent reviews and performance calibrations with leaders, ensuring fair and effective talent management processes.

• Drive people manager upskilling programs and leadership development initiatives across M-KOPA markets

Build High-Performance Culture

• Cultivate a growth-oriented, high-performance culture through effective performance management and employee engagement initiatives.

• Address employee relations issues with professionalism, ensuring consistent policy application and compliance with local labor practices.

• Coach managers and employees on best practices, conflict resolution, and professional development

Lead Change & Strategic Initiatives

• Manage complex organizational change initiatives, from planning through execution and measurement.

• Support business transformations, restructuring, and cross-functional project implementations.

• Collaborate with global People team and regional stakeholders to ensure seamless integration of people strategies.

• 8-10 years of progressive HR experience with 4+ years partnering with senior leaders in fast-growth, complex organizations.

• Proven track record designing and implementing people strategies that drive measurable business results across local and global contexts.

• Strategic and operational range - equally comfortable with long-term planning and hands-on execution, with strong business acumen to translate people priorities into business outcomes.

• Cross-cultural expertise supporting distributed teams across time zones, with experience creating and scaling people programs across multiple countries or regions.

• Data-driven approach to decision-making with experience using people analytics to inform strategy and track performance.

• Exceptional coaching and advisory skills for leaders at all levels, with strong change management capabilities and ability to influence without authority.

• Understanding of African labor practices and regulatory environments, particularly in South Africa and broader West/East African markets.

Why This Role Rocks

• Dual Impact: Shape both South Africa's growth trajectory and global people excellence across all M-KOPA markets.

• Strategic Ownership: Lead key people initiatives with significant autonomy and direct access to senior leadership.

• Global Reach: Influence people practices across Africa while building deep market expertise in South Africa.

• Growth Platform: Build scalable people solutions in a high growth fintech environment driving financial inclusion at scale.

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 and 2025) and by TIME100 Most influential companies in the world 2023 and 2024 , we've served over 5 million customers, unlocking $1.5 billion in cumulative credit for the unbanked across Africa.

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.