Head of Business Management

HEAD OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT | M-KOPA UGANDA
The Role Where Your Strategic Thinking Actually Gets Built
You've proven you can optimize existing businesses. Now build the next ones.

You're already successful. You've led transformation projects that moved the needle. You've built analytics capabilities that changed how your organization makes decisions. You've earned your reputation as the person who gets complex, cross-functional initiatives across the finish line.

But here's what you probably haven't had: the opportunity to be the architect instead of the optimizer.

Why This Opportunity Exists Right Now

M-KOPA has reached 7 million customers and unlocked $2+ billion in credit across Africa. Uganda is one of our five strategic markets, and we're at the inflection point where proven success meets ambitious expansion. We need a Head of Business Management who can operate as both strategic partner to our General Manager and the entrepreneurial force behind our next business lines.

This isn't a typical business operations role. It's the rare position where you're simultaneously driving execution excellence across existing functions while incubating entirely new revenue verticals. Think of it as having one foot in business transformation and the other in venture building—all within a proven, scaled organization.

What Makes This Different From Your Current Role

You're Building, Not Just Improving

Your current role probably involves optimizing processes that already exist. Here, you'll lead the incubation and development of new business lines from concept to launch. When we identify a new product opportunity or revenue vertical, you're the one who builds it, tests it, and scales it. You're not managing someone else's vision—you're the one shaping what's next.

Strategic Partner, Not Just Strategic Advisor

Most senior operators influence strategy through recommendations. You'll serve as strategic partner to Uganda's General Manager on business-critical initiatives, with direct ownership of transformation projects. Your analytics don't just inform decisions—you're making the decisions. Your market intelligence doesn't just influence partnerships—you're managing the revenue-driving relationships with MNOs, OEMs, and DFS providers.

Real Complexity That Demands Your Full Capabilities

You've probably been over-qualified for parts of your current role. This role requires everything you've developed: business intelligence expertise to build comprehensive KPI frameworks, commercial acumen to drive pricing optimization, transformation leadership to eliminate operational silos, and innovation strategy to launch new verticals. Finally, a role that uses all of it simultaneously.

Why Your Experience Makes You Uniquely Ready

You've built exactly the capabilities this role demands:

• Senior transformation leadership with proven success driving large-scale operational excellence initiatives across multiple functions
• Business intelligence mastery creating analytics capabilities, performance modeling, and predictive insights that changed how organizations operate
• Complex project leadership owning enterprise-scale initiatives requiring senior-level stakeholder management and cross-functional alignment

What you haven't had is the platform to apply all of this where you're not just improving existing operations—you're defining what the next ones look like.

What Your Day-to-Day Actually Involves

Monday: You're reviewing partnership performance with a major MNO, analyzing revenue trends and proposing structural changes to a multimillion-dollar agreement. Your commercial insights drive the negotiation strategy.

Wednesday: You're presenting your business intelligence dashboard to Uganda leadership, showing how predictive analytics identified a retention opportunity worth thousands of customers. Your recommendations reshape the marketing strategy.

Thursday: You're leading a cross-functional team exploring a new financial services product. You own the business case, the pilot design, and the incubation roadmap. If it works, you'll have built a new revenue vertical from scratch.

Friday: You're working with the fraud prevention team and global Center of Excellence, implementing new strategies that protect operations while maintaining the customer experience that drives our 86% satisfaction rates.

Between these moments, you're doing what senior operators do: solving complex problems, unblocking teams, driving execution. But you're doing it in an environment where the scope keeps expanding because success creates new opportunities rather than just incremental improvements.

The Honest Reality

This role is intense. You're the General Manager's strategic partner across multiple high-stakes initiatives simultaneously. You need comfort with ambiguity and pace.

This role requires entrepreneurial thinking. You're expected to identify opportunities, not just execute them. New business incubation means some experiments will fail.

This role demands presence. You'll be based in Uganda, deeply embedded in market dynamics while collaborating across our five African markets.

But if you're honest, you're probably ready for exactly this. You've proven you can drive results in structured environments. Now prove you can create the structures others will optimize.

Why Successful People Consider This Move

The best career moves don't happen when you're desperate—they happen when you're strong enough that leaving feels risky. That tension usually means you're ready for something that demands more.

If you're currently successful running operations or leading transformation in a larger organization, you know the frustration of having great ideas that get diluted through approval chains. Here, when you identify an opportunity and build the business case, you're the one who gets to build it.

If you're accomplished in strategy consulting or management consulting, you know the satisfaction of solving complex problems and the frustration of handing your recommendations to others to execute. Here, you own both the strategy and the execution.

Your current role has taught you what great looks like. This role lets you build it.

What Makes Uganda Specifically Compelling

Uganda represents the sweet spot: proven M-KOPA model, growing customer base, and white space for new verticals. You're not building from zero (we have the infrastructure, brand, and customers), but you're early enough that your strategic decisions fundamentally shape the market's trajectory.

Our Uganda operations contribute to serving customers where 70% use our products for income generation and 86% report improved quality of life. The business lines you incubate and the partnerships you optimize directly impact financial inclusion at scale. That's not corporate purpose-washing—it's measurable impact from your strategic work.

Ready to move from optimizing businesses to building them? Let's talk about what senior business leadership looks like when you're the one defining what's next.

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-

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.

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