Senior Manager, Communications — M-KOPA

Your pitches land. Your crisis plans hold up. But have you ever had to make both work across five markets at once — with no local comms team to lean on?

Most communications leaders get to specialise strategy people strategise, admin gets delegated, and "internal" and "external" stay in separate lanes. At M-KOPA, we're asking one person to hold all of it — because that's genuinely what the role requires, and because we think the right person will find that more interesting than limiting.

We're building financial access at a scale few companies attempt. M-KOPA now serves 7 million customers across Sub-Saharan Africa, having unlocked over $2 billion in credit. Independent research tells us 86% of our customers report improved quality of life, 70% use our products to generate income, and 55% are accessing formal financial services for the first time. Behind that: 2,300+ employees, 35,000+ agents, $45 million contributed in taxes, 2 million smartphones assembled in Kenya, and a growing e-mobility business already saving riders $5.62 a day in fuel costs.

Why this timing matters

If you've noticed M-KOPA advertising several senior roles at once, that's not a coincidence — it's deliberate. We're scaling from 7 million customers toward 10 million, and that means building the infrastructure, leadership bench, and narrative capability to match. Communications sits right at the centre of that: as we grow, more markets, more media, and more employees need a coherent, credible story about who we are. This role exists because that story is now too big for ad hoc handling.

What makes this different

Most Senior Manager, Communications roles at this level sit above the work — reviewing, approving, delegating. This one doesn't. You'll draft the media pitch yourself. You'll sit with a country MD to talk them through group positioning. You'll partner directly with People/HR on a sensitive change narrative. And in the same week, you'll chase a purchase order and reconcile a budget line, because there's no one else to hand that to. It's a rare mix of strategic weight and genuine hands-on ownership — and because M-KOPA doesn't have dedicated in-market communications staff, you'll be the connective tissue holding Group positioning and market execution together across an entire region.

What you'll need to bring

• Established, active media relationships across Sub-Saharan Africa that you can put to work immediately — this is core to the role, not a nice-to-have, alongside a demonstrable record of securing coverage and turning coverage data into real insight rather than a clippings log.

• Proven experience managing agencies, suppliers, and budgets end-to-end — from procurement and onboarding through to purchase orders, spend tracking, and audit-ready finance admin — comfortable owning operational detail as a routine part of the role, not an exception to it.

• A track record of partnering with HR/People teams on internal communications, culture, and change narratives, plus demonstrable experience navigating crisis and issues management with government and public stakeholders in multi-market environments.

What the work actually looks like

One day you're drafting a press statement under time pressure. The next, you're on a call with a market MD, working through why local execution has drifted from group messaging — and helping them fix it, not just flagging it. You're building the weekly media report that actually tells the Director something useful about sentiment and share of voice, not just a list of clippings. You're in a planning session with People/HR, shaping how a sensitive organisational change gets communicated to employees across several countries. And somewhere in the same week, you're raising a PO, chasing an invoice, or reconciling the department's budget — because keeping the function's engine running is as much your job as the storytelling is.

The honest version

This role is genuinely demanding. You're doing strategic, high-visibility work and operational admin in the same breath, often across multiple time zones and without the buffer of a dedicated in-market team. It asks for someone who can hold a firm line with senior leaders one hour and get into the weeds of a spreadsheet the next — and who finds that combination energising rather than beneath them. If fixed process, long lead times, and neatly separated responsibilities are what you're looking for, this probably isn't it. If genuine ownership across the full spectrum of the work is what you've been missing, it might be exactly right.

Let's talk

If you're the kind of communications professional who can write the leadership speech and chase the purchase order in the same week — and see both as real work worth doing well — we'd like to hear from you. No pressure to have it all figured out before reaching out. Let's have the conversation.

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.