M-Pesa Africa – Cost Analyst
Nairobi, Kenya
Trending
Job Description
About M-Pesa Africa
At M-Pesa Africa, we’re the heroes that make things happen.
We are a united, energetic and passionate team. A place where leaders coach, teams connect, and everyone is empowered to go further, faster. A place where heroes become superheroes; through growth, opportunity, and the chance to work with the best minds in FinTech.
We are Africa’s largest FinTech providing services to more than 60 million customers and 5 million businesses solutions across Financial Services, Enterprise, Merchant and Retail. We are now well on our way to becoming the preferred digital payment method across the markets that we serve, for both in-store, remote and online payments. With headquarters in both Kenya and South Africa, we serve markets that include Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.
About the Role
As a Cost Analyst, you’ll play a pivotal role in driving financial excellence! You’ll help optimize our financial performance by diving into cost structures, uncovering exciting cost-saving opportunities, and supporting the budgeting and spending processes. Your expertise will contribute directly to the creation of detailed, impactful financial reports. By leveraging your strong analytical skills, mastery in financial modeling, and building strong stakeholder relationships, you’ll make a meaningful impact on the organization’s bottom line. This is your chance to influence key decisions and shape our financial future.
Responsibilities
Month End Close & Rolling forecast
- Facilitate timely end month reporting by ensuring Opex accruals and Recharges are submitted on time.
- Carrying out variance analysis of actual spend vs budget and sharing the same with FLT.
- Sharing commentary on drivers of variances between spend and budget.
- Share an updated monthly RF with FP&A team for Opex with anticipated risks and opportunities.
Budget Tracking
- Track Actual spend vs budget highlighting risks to plan.
- Create a savings tracker for project Opex based on signed off contracts.
- Build a solid accrual base and tight control over all contracts.
Business Cases:
- Support in development of business cases as required and support in review of investment decisions.
- Business Partnering Conduct quarterly performance reviews with budget owners, commercial and tech teams giving visibility on actuals vs forecast.
Forecasting
- Assisting in the preparation of the operating budget
- Assist with financial forecasting for each Value Stream and understand the true cost of initiatives
Cost control
- Tracking, analyzing, and controlling costs associated with ARTs.
- Proactively advise and support the business unit to ensure an effective operating control environment is in place.
- Provide ongoing to financial assurance to Procurement with regards to Supplier Management.
- Confirm PO accuracy to underlying contract i.e correct currency as per contract and accurately categorisation into Opex/ Capex.
- Ensure timely PO return process within set SLA’s.
- Monitor and respond to vendor queries & correspondence within set SLA’s.
- Lead regular reviews and provide support to the Management on the achievement of targets.
- Support internal and external audit processes via providing required support.
Qualifications
Core competencies, knowledge, and experience:
- >3 years of professional experience, ideally with a bank or financial service provider in Africa
- Excellent Commercial Awareness with strong knowledge of mobile money, fintech and financial services
- Ability to build trusted relationships and work collaboratively with others
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both oral and written, with the ability to influence and win over key stakeholders
- Excellent analytical skills with the ability to interpret raw data and translate it into clear, concise information
- The ability to explain complex financial data to non-finance individuals
- Aligns mindset, words, and actions to Lean-Agile values and principles
- Supports innovation and customer centricity and fosters flow & relentless improvement
- Problem solving skills and the ability to think creatively and see the ‘bigger picture’
Technical / professional qualifications:
- Part qualified or qualified accountant (ACCA/ACA or CIMA)
- Agile Experience – minimum 2 years
- Contagious passion for, and commitment to, driving mobile money growth and innovation
- Communication and relationship management experience to executive level – 2 years
- Mobile Payment or Financial Payment Services Experience – 2 years
- Relevant certified SAFe qualification, for example, SAFe Lean Portfolio Management
- Knowledge and understanding of Jira
About Us
We are the leading telecommunication company in East Africa. Our purpose is to transform lives by connecting people to people, people to opportunities and people to information. We keep over 42 million customers connected and play a critical role in the society, supporting over one million jobs both directly and indirectly while our total economic value was estimated at KES 362 Billion ($ 3.2 billion) for the 12 months through March 2021. We are listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and with annual revenues of close to KES 298 Billion ($2.5 billion) as at March 2022. We were founded in 1997 as a fully owned subsidiary of Telkom Kenya before a 40 percent acquisition by Vodafone Group PLC in May 2000, and a public offering of 25 percent shares through the NSE in 2008. Under the management of Vodafone Group PLC, we welcomed Michael Joseph, as our first CEO, a few months later in July of 2000. He led the company’s growth to accommodate 16.71 million subscribers from the previous 20,000, largely owing to innovative products like M-PESA in 2007.
About the Team
We are the leading provider of converged communication solutions in Kenya. In addition to providing a broad range of first-class products and services for Telephony, Broadband Internet and Financial services, Safaricom seeks to uplift the welfare of Kenyans through value-added services and support for community projects. To achieve all this, we are ever-reliant on our competent and dependable staff who make it possible for us to achieve greater heights for our customers.
