Executive Head of Department – Financial Business Partnering – Commercial Full Time

 About Us

At Safaricom Ethiopia, we are a purpose-led technology company dedicated to transforming lives through digital connectivity and inclusive financial services. In under four years, we have grown to serve over 10 million customers, with our network now reaching 55% of Ethiopia’s population – a testament to our bold vision and trusted partnerships.

Guided by core values such as customer obsession, innovation, integrity, and get it done together, we are building a workplace that is dynamic, inclusive, and empowering. We believe our greatest strength lies in our people. That’s why, for two consecutive years, we have proudly get earned the Top Employer Award – in recognition for our unwavering commitment to fostering a supportive, innovative, and inclusive environment to people.

Join Safaricom Ethiopia and be part of a team that is shaping the digital future of Ethiopia. Here, your work has meaning, your voice matters, and your growth is our priority. Together, we are transforming lives for a digital future. 

                                           Role purpose: 

• To be the trusted advisor to the Chief Finance Officer and support in optimal commercial and operational decisions making, ensuring that Safaricom Ethiopia continues to grow and strengthen its customer centricity as well as operational intensity on the use of Finance resources. 
• To drive direct costs and open decision making and a shift towards more efficient commercial operations from a cost/capital perspective and margin expansion. 
• To participate in periodic budgeting, forecasting and reporting cycles to ensure that divisional costs drivers are correctly reflected and captured in the reporting systems to avoid subsequent delays to downstream processes or inefficiencies.
• To avail key financial management information to senior management and other stakeholders on a periodic basis within the timelines provided. This will be swift, analytical and insightful financial support and information for all internal business decisions by partnering with the different Commercial divisions in a proactive manner to drive revenue and customer growth and faster turnaround on capital investments and enhanced benchmarking for key business activities & processes that drive costs. 
• Lead the Commercial Functions (EBU, CBU, S&D, MPESA) Finance Business Partner team across the organization. Championing their development in line with the world class finance benchmarks on skills and proficiency 

•    Preparation and review of forecasts, budgets, LRP and Business Plan, and provide timely insights on revenue, margin and commercial opex to Senior Management and the Financial Planning & Analysis team. 

•   Partner with the Chiefs of Commercial functions to drive the delivery of most cost-efficient commercial operations by leveraging own vast experience and challenging assumptions and strategic thinking by the commercial team. 
•  Ensure the annual budgets and quarterly forecast information adheres to IFRS and complies with Group accounting policies especially with regards to IFRS 15 on Revenue Recognition. 
•   Ensure that opex spend is in line with approved Budgets, and that funding aspects of opex are in line with approvals including on any parental company guarantees relating to opex
• Support data and analytics that provide key insights into business performance and support decision making.
•  Keeps track of revenue performance and articulate on key revenue drivers and risks to revenue performance.
•   Uses data and analytics to review commercial performance for commercial tribes and units and support decision making
•  Review of cost center reports for commercial Divisions to ensure accuracy of entries made and reasonableness of any accruals and/or provisions included in the reports.
• Ensure Business Model Compliance and reinforce internal controls and company policy. Act as the main contact for finance on new business model and product initiatives related to agile transformation.
• Provide guidance to budget owners and drive budget adherence within the departments.
• Track implementation of agreed commercial objectives against our BU strategic priorities.
• Arrange for a Performance Review meeting monthly to review. performance against targets, review KPIs, review outcome of activities and deliberate whether we are on track to deliver against plan.
•  Analyze business results and monitor trends. Provide management information and reporting to the CFO, Leadership Team and FP&A, highlighting business performance issues and opportunities. 
• Share key insights from the key performance indicators tracked per product and per segment.
• Develop a story which helps in interpreting the meaning and significance of the performance information
• Identify the internal and external factors that impact commercial performance and help inform any judgments and understanding of performance.
• Work with BI team to ensure reporting of all revenue lines by segments & products are available.
• Keep the CFO updated with commercial key matters, changes, new initiatives or products, relevant operational developments or changes, or any other important impactful or risk matters

         Core competencies, knowledge and experience: 

               Business Competencies: 

               Working with Others 

•  Consciously takes steps to make the most of every conversation/interaction. 
• Identifies people’s needs, interests and motives to be able to influence the decisions they make. 
• Communicates simply to excite and engage people. 
• Pro-actively adapts own style and approach to build rapport, and work with others more effectively. 
• Builds and maintains strong relationships and networks. 

        Operational Excellence 

•   Targets effort and resources on high value, high impact activity.   
•  Focus on achieving maximum performance and driving continuous improvement. 
•   Act as the single point of information and contact on all commercial finance-related matters for the Commercial Business Units.   
•  Ensure ROI for all asset categories is properly defined and enhanced to drive returns for capital investments. 
•  Prepare and review financial models as required and carry out any financial due diligence required. 
•  Lead the organization in the drive for efficiency, sustainable and optimal cost control measures. 
• Identify areas for digitization, simplification and automation for process improvement and using robotic process technology to eliminate repetitive tasks. 
•  Establish and roll out a mix of agile and project methodology with stakeholders across the business to ensure any input required from the department is thorough and timely and build into the project deliverables. 
•  Define clear and optimal Finance business partner structure across commercial functions taking note of spans, layers and future business evolution. 
•  Manage performance management, objective setting & PDR Review Processes. 
• Ensure relevant staff reskilling and upskilling is undertaken to develop credible succession planning within the department.
• Align and advocate to the team, division and all staff the Spirit of Safaricom behaviours
• Thinks about processes and problems cross-functionally and end-to-end. 
• Uses knowledge of products, technology, processes, systems and policy to solve problems.
•  Acts in line with legal, regulatory, professional and ethical standards. 

              Working with Change 

•  Responds flexibly to changing   situations. 
•  Manages the business and people aspects of change to drive performance. 
•  Project and Program Management 
•  Defines scope and deliverables in terms of time, cost, quality and business benefit.   
• Schedules activity and identifies resource needs, dependencies and synergies.   
• Evaluates progress, mitigates risks and addresses issues. 

                  Functional Competencies: 

         Planning and Control 

•  Analyses performance trends to determine the health of the business. 
•   Steers business performance by using strategy and external data to help set goals.   
•   Translate strategies into actionable plans that add value via process and operational improvements
•  Maintains controls within Financial Systems through ensuring required controls are in place and master data management. 

           Accounting 

•  Prepares, analyses and summarizes financial data to support business operations and deliver statutory information. 
• Ensures the integrity of processes and systems to record and ensure authorization of transactions, business cases, incentives, or any other where applicable, in compliance with Safaricom accounting policies, DOA and regulations. 

  Reporting 

• Deliver timely and accurate reports to satisfy statutory and business requirements.   
•  Identifies key performance and variances and provide recommendations. 

 Performance indicators: 

• Ensure timely review of monthly performance for the S&D, EBU, CBU & MPESA functions to support financial month end processes and performance pack.
• Ensure timely and in-depth reports of key financial models and forecasts for the strategic projects and opportunities availed. 
• Demonstrable impact of the improvements in cost, efficiency, talent development and management. 
• Prepare with Business Unit leadership teams for the monthly performance review with Safaricom, Vodacom & GPE Consortium. 
• Ensure Funds allocated to projects are allocated correctly and are spent within budget and deliver returns. 
• Overview of performance of staff in the department through quarterly and annual reviews. 
• Implement and address matters raised from Employee Survey to align and bring up the Spirit of Safaricom behaviors

   

Must have technical / professional qualifications: 

• Relevant Degree in Accounting, Economics, Finance. 
•  Preferably, at least 8 years of experience with, and deep knowledge of commercial underpinning the telecoms or similar sector. 
• 10 years of broad, progressive experience in all facets of Finance i.e. Management Accounting, Forecasting and Planning, Financial Accounting, and Finance Operations. 
•  Excellent commercial acumen and experience.

   How to Apply

• If you feel that you are up to the challenge and possess the necessary qualification and experience, kindly proceed to create/ update your candidate profile on the recruitment portal and then Click on the apply button.
• Link: https://egjd.fa.us6.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/STEP/job/829
• Remember to attach your resume