Senior Manager Financial Services – Legal & Regulatory

Location: Kenya

Job Description

Reporting to the CoE Lead, Legal Services, the Senior Manager Financial Services – Legal & Regulatory will serve as the lead Legal, Regulatory, and Policy Affairs Business Partner for the Financial Services Cluster and Public Sector Digital Transformation CoE. The role provides strategic legal guidance, regulatory advocacy, and ensures compliance while mitigating risk. It acts as the primary liaison with financial services and fintech regulatory authorities, leading advocacy efforts and securing favourable regulatory outcomes.
The role also involves providing specialized legal expertise—contractual drafting, negotiation, legal research, review, and legislative monitoring—to support Financial Services and Public Sector Digital Transformation objectives. The Senior Manager will ensure timely policy support, compliance, regulatory risk management, and custodianship of compliance records, while offering expert support to other business units.

Responsibilities

General Responsibilities

• Uphold the company code of conduct, policies, and procedures with integrity and accountability.
• Ensure adherence to safety, health, and wellbeing guidelines in all decisions and actions.

Regulatory Engagement & Advocacy

• Lead proactive engagement with financial services and fintech regulators to influence favourable policy and legislative frameworks.
• Represent Safaricom in regulatory forums and consultations, ensuring clear articulation of positions.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with regulatory authorities to secure positive outcomes and mitigate adverse actions.

Legal Advisory, Risk Management & Dispute Resolution

• Provide strategic legal counsel on complex commercial, financial services, and public sector digital transformation matters.
• Embed privacy-by-design and compliance-by-design principles in product lifecycles.
• Identify, assess, and mitigate legal and regulatory risks.
• Manage and resolve disputes arising from financial services operations.
• Oversee litigation processes and provide timely leadership updates on contentious matters.

Contractual Management & Negotiation

• Draft, review, and negotiate high-value partnership and commercial agreements.
• Ensure agreements safeguard organizational interests while remaining commercially viable.
• Maintain and update customer-facing templates, including consumer T&Cs, agent agreements, and B2C/C2B contracts.

Policy, Legislative Monitoring & Compliance

• Conduct ongoing monitoring of legislative and regulatory developments affecting financial services and fintech.
• Prepare briefs and strategic recommendations for leadership.
• Contribute to stakeholder sessions on key issues such as AML, electronic financial services, and digital public infrastructure.
• Maintain registers of licenses, regulatory fines/sanctions, and inspection calendars.
• Ensure accurate and timely regulatory reporting and adherence to governance frameworks.

Stakeholder & Team Management

• Partner with cross-functional teams to align legal and regulatory strategies with business objectives.
• Support global compliance, trademarks, managed service agreements, and international money transfer agreements.
• Provide strategic direction to legal and regulatory support teams.
• Set performance expectations and ensure delivery of high-quality outcomes.
• Mentor junior legal professionals and foster a collaborative culture across business units.

Core Competencies, Knowledge & Experience

Customer Obsession

• Deepen team connection to customers and communities.
• Foster authentic relationships that build trust.
• Make customer-centric decisions and own results.
• Simplify processes through digitalisation.
• Focus on priorities, make trade-offs, and demonstrate excellent execution.

Purpose

• Create an inspiring vision to drive strategy and performance.
• Empower teams to go beyond set plans.
• Challenge teams to reimagine processes.
• Prompt new thinking with “what if” questions.
• Use external environment insights to identify growth opportunities.

Innovation

• Create psychological safety for idea generation.
• Encourage and test innovative ideas.
• Explore successes and failures with resilience.
• Share ongoing learning and purpose.
• Learn fast from digital adoption for efficiency and scale.

Collaboration

• Clearly define the team’s role in achieving strategy.
• Break silos and promote cross-functional collaboration.
• Coach others to take ownership.
• Create an inclusive environment that ensures safety and wellbeing.
• Demonstrate integrity and live the company’s purpose.

Qualifications

• Minimum ten (10) years’ progressive experience in commercial law within financial services or telecommunications, including three (3) years in senior leadership.
• Proven experience in regulatory engagement, policy advocacy, complex agreement drafting, and litigation management.
• LL.B from a reputable Commonwealth University.
• Kenya School of Law Diploma and Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.
• Member of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) in good standing.
• Relevant certifications (Arbitration/Mediation, Fintech Regulation, AML, IP, Legislative Drafting).
• Master’s Degree in Law (LL.M) is an added advantage.
• High professional and ethical standards, analytical and strategic thinking.

How to Apply

If you feel that you are up to the challenge and possess the required qualifications and experience, create or update your candidate profile on the recruitment portal and click the apply button. Remember to attach your resume.