Payments Analyst

M-KOPA is seeking:
 

Position Title: Payments Analyst
 

Location: Nairobi HQ
 

Position Start: As Soon As Possible
 

Reporting to: Head of Data
 

Overall Purpose: This objective of this position is to ensure that all payments are accurately processed in a timely fashion.

About M-KOPA Solar: M-KOPA Solar, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, is the global leader of "pay-as-you-go" energy for off-grid customers.

Since its commercial launch in October 2012, M-KOPA has connected more than 200,000 homes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to solar power, and is now adding over 500 new homes each day.

The success of M-KOPA (M= mobile, KOPA= to borrow) stems from making solar products affordable to low-income households on a pay-per-use installment plan. 

 

Customers acquire solar systems for a small deposit and then purchase daily usage "credits" for US $0.45, or less than the price of traditional kerosene lighting. 

After one year of payments customers own their solar systems outright and can upgrade to more power.

All revenues are collected in real-time via mobile money systems (such as M-PESA in Kenya) and embedded GSM sensors in each solar system allow M-KOPA to monitor real time performance and regulate usage based upon payments. 

This connected design means that M-KOPA is processing vast amounts of data (i.e. over 10,000 mobile payments per day) via the company's proprietary cloud platform, M-KOPAnet.

As of May 2015 M-KOPA employs over 650 full time staff across East Africa and sells through a network of 1,000 direct sales agents. It has also commenced licensing its technology to partners in other markets.

M-KOPA has been recognised for its pioneering business mode and scale, notably winning the 2015 Zayed Future Energy Prize, being selected as the top New Energy Pioneer at the 2014 Bloomberg New Energy Finance awards and earning the 2013 FT/IFC Excellence in Sustainable Finance Award.
 

Role Profile

Key Accountabilities
 

Planning & Organization

• Proactively update the payments-affecting activities calendar and implement all processes necessary to mitigate risk
• Produce regular housekeeping reports to allow for an accurate measure of the status of both successful and failed transactions and timely view of customer and agents affecting issues at any point in time; highlighting any exceptions to the supervisor.

Customer Excellence: Internal/External Customer Engagement & Relationship Management

• Coordinate with Finance (accounts receivables, VAT and revenue) to ensure timely and accurate financial booking, reporting and reconciliations.
• Coordinate and work closely with all payment partner channels in resolving any outstanding unidentified and un-reconciled payments and timely escalation of potential errors.
• Work closely with internal and external IT Operations in ensuring timely resolution of payment related activities – batch processing/uploads, report extracts, replications, etc.
• Conduct reconciliation of customer payments made out through the channel in a timely manner.
• Manage timely and accurate application of payments and top ups to the customer account
• Conduct timely reporting and regular escalation of key customer affecting issues to the supervisor
• Conduct root cause analysis and resolve simple to medium complexity customer facing problems across numerous processes and systems

People Excellence: Learning & Growth

• Provide ongoing guidance and support to other business users and team members on payments.
• Develop and agree with the supervisor on plans to continue build own skills and knowledge.
• Keep build and improve skills that may enhance the operation activities from finance prospective for this area.

Process Excellence: Operational Efficiency & Risk Management

• Recognize, propose and drive enhancements to ensure weaknesses/gaps are addressed in the payment processes and systems
• Assist in the development of test cases/scenarios for any changes, additions or enhancements to payment processing and reconciliations
• Perform User Acceptance Testing on any changes, developments and additions of payment channels
• Perform continuous analysis to seek and implement improvements in the payment reconciliation processes the efficient use of resources
• Assist the supervisor in the definition & documentation of all relevant business processes for payment reconciliations

Incumbent Requirements

• Good understanding of accounting principles; best practices and procedures
• Comfortable working with people at senior levels
• Strong communication/negotiation skills
• Strong analytical and presentation skills
• Strong Excel skills
• Ability to manage own work load and meet aggressive deadlines and deliverables
• Persistence with problem solving and solution recommendation
• Outcome Focused and Result Oriented
• Excellent interpersonal and business writing skills
• Experience of working in a complex business environment
• Strong understanding of IT systems and quality assurance processes
• Ability to adapt to changing priorities, workload and tasks
• Attention to detail
• Ability to work well in a team environment under demanding and stressful conditions
• Fluency in English & Swahili

Education: 

• Bachelor’s Degree in Finance or Accounting, or its equivalent
• Professional Accountancy Certification (CPA(K) or ACCA)

Remuneration: Competitive covering a monthly salary, performance bonus and medical benefits reflective of the candidate’s experience and skills.

To Apply: To apply, send an updated detailed copy of your CV and a cover letter expressing why you feel you would be an excellent candidate for the role to careers@m-kopa.com with the subject EV-DPA-615

Deadline for applications is 3 PM 9th June 2015

Please Note: Due to the large number of applications received by us, we regret that you will not be contacted unless you are short listed for the post and invited for an interview. 

Therefore, if you have not heard from M-KOPA within 4 weeks of the date of the deadline your application, you should assume that you have not been successful on this occasion.

This measure has been taken in the interests of efficiency and cost effectiveness and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Software Engineer

Job Title: Software Engineer

Job Code: SWE/TL/150603
 

Number of Positions Open: 3

Reports To:  Project Manager

Location:  Nairobi, Kenya

Closing Date:  Open Until Filled

Summary: Our client is a Kenyan ICT firm that develops ICT solutions that automate business processes in every sector of the economy to promote efficiency, sustainable innovation, and best practice. 

They are also a trend setter in mobile solutions used by millions of Kenyans, every day and are licensed by Communication Authority to provide premium rate and content services.

Job Summary: As a Software Engineer, you will be directly responsible for the actual designing, developing and installing software solutions for target clients within set deadlines and specifications as well as ensure that all related activities are well planned, managed and happen within the agreed standards. 

 

You shall be expected to produce high quality software solutions within time and resource constraints that shall be acceptable and useful to clients.

You will be involved in numerous day to day tasks including overseeing the entire software product development process from design to delivering the product to clients. 

You will be expected to communicate each activity progress to the project manager and build strong client relationships with the clients that you serve while you interact with them. 

You will brief your supervisor on all the happenings of the day giving suggestions and ideas on how we can move the business to a new level. 

You will need to ensure open and efficient communication channels exist between you and your supervisor in order for the business to run smoothly

Primary Responsibilities:

1.  System Research and Analysis

• To interact with various clients and / or stakeholders to determine their problem statement through requirements gathering, conduct analysis of the requirements and come up with requirement and system specification documents
• To use relevant documentation standards and tools to come up with various necessary project and system documentations prior to the software development processes that correctly document software projects
• To conduct analysis of various requirements, problem definitions e.t.c. of solutions to determine operational feasibility of solutions and advise management appropriately
• Improve operations by conducting systems analysis and recommending changes in systems and solutions

Evaluation:

• Research documentation
• Case findings and feasibility studies
• Requirements gathering
• Ability to analyze various solutions and requirements

2. System Design, Development and deployment / implementation and documentation 

System Design

• To use various standards of software modeling and simulation using different techniques to come up with solution models and designs that can be used as the base for the system development phase
• To use database skills and knowledge to come up with sound database designs for various software projects prior to the development phase
• To create various required system design documents and tools for solutions for approval prior to their development

System Development

• To program and develop according to specification with the main aim of developing a problem solving and customer acceptable solution and that meets the clients’ requirements
• Develop software solutions according to the given specifications and come up with deliverables within deadline and resources constraint
• To integrate various software and hardware solutions with other pre-existing or new software and hardware solutions to ensure that they work together as planned on blueprint
• To document the developed work using various standards and procedures to ensure that solutions are easily understandable and usable both at a user level and from a developers point of view / interaction

System Implementation / deployment / roll out

• To deploy various system solutions within client sites and other platforms applicable as per the requirements of the project and conduct developer white and black box testing as well as user acceptance testing together with the customer to ensure that the solution meets the expectation of the users and is hence accepted
• To integrate various solutions developed with other systems that exist and that are meant to work hand in hand with the developed solution in the best manner possible
• To conduct system integration tests where applicable for solutions developed and that integrate with others that exist or that are built away from our solution
• To train the users of the solution on the use of the systems deployed and furnish them with various system documentations including user manuals and “how to” guides

System documentation

• To write and produce system documentation for solutions developed including user guides and manuals, developer guides and system functional specifications documents for use by the various stake
• Document all project workflow and applications for easier follow up, coordination, maintenance and support

Evaluation:
 

System and database Design

• Ability to come up with proper and useful designs of systems to be implemented and their documentation
• Ability to design databases for the achievement of various project purposes and their documentation

System Development

• Ability to develop sound programmatic solutions that meet the clients requirements and that conform to both design specifications and acceptable standards, best practice and current trends

System implementation / deployment / roll out

• Ability to implement / deploy / roll out developed solutions within client and other applicable infrastructure and have them working as planned and in the best manner possible
• Ability to test and have solutions accepted by the users and other stake holders of the solution as solving their problem
• Positive feedback from customers on the solution implementation

System Documentation

• Ability to produce various product documentations required by all stakeholders as well as documentation to support the system development life cycle

3.  Project Management

• Manage project workflow and ensure that projects are executed within the set schedule with prudence to avoid or minimize wastage of resources
• To use various project management methodologies and reporting to ensure that projects are implemented in the best manner possible
• To take lead in various projects and be overall responsible for their successful execution and implementation from start to end
• To coordinate project workflows and deliverables through the use of leadership and communication skills to ensure that projects are delivered in the best manner possible

Evaluation:

• The smooth execution of projects and project work flow
• Coordination and alignment of project’s members
• Maximization of project resources within projects
• Overall success of projects

4.  Quality Assurance

• To ensure all projects and deliverables adhere to highest quality standards
• Provide software testing and quality assurance to clients

Evaluation:

• Ability to provide high quality and efficient solutions to clients requirements
• Client’s level of satisfaction with quality of work

5.  Product and solution support and maintenance

• Offer excellent support to clients in relation to the products offered to them
• Liaise closely with system support team to offer system support when required to especially for support that requires development, system tweaking or correction
• Ensure continued customer satisfaction by being committed and accountable in delivering results that meet their needs
• Perform continuous solution reviews and upgrades to ensure that the solutions remain relevant and up to date with current trends, standards and requirements

Evaluation:

• Ability to remedy programmatic issues / faults reported by customers with regard to products that they are using Client’s satisfaction with the products that they use
• Ability to maintain software solutions and keep them relevant, easy to use and continuously updated and in conformance with industry standards and acceptable functionality
• Ensure continued customer satisfaction by being committed and accountable in delivering results that meet their needs

Reporting and any other Duties

• You will be reporting to the Project Manager, and in the absence to the Head of Technical department both of whom shall be your supervisor and senior supervisor respectively
• Your supervisors should be briefed on the progress of the team’s activities towards achieving the set targets and the status of the client relationships on the ground
• The supervisors may review your duties from time to time

Evaluation:

• Supervisor’s recommendation

Knowledge and Skills:

Required:

• Must have 3-4 years’ experience in software development
• Must understand desktop and web development with the following skills: Java, Php, javascript, J2ME, Android programming, Ajax, .Net
• Knowledge of database platforms: SQL server, MySql, Oracle, foxpro, XML
• Excellent team player and willingness to take direction and use own initiative as appropriate
• Desire to learn new technologies and adapt to them with regard to programs and programming as a whole
• Ability to communicate clearly within team, to management and with clients on relevant subjects of the tasks undertaken
• Project organization and management skill
• Experience with RAD tools and MVC frameworks e.g CakePhp, code igniter e.t.c
• Experience in using web publishing and content management tools e.g dreamweaver and joomla to come up with websites that can be commercialized

Preferred:

• Course in project management
• Good interpersonal skills
• Other programming languages and tools e.g. C#, python e.t.c
• Experience with financial management software and financial accounting packages
• Graphic design skills (Photoshop, illustrator, fireworks e.t.c)

Professional Competencies:

The following are key competencies required of the role.

The candidate must exhibit the following professional competencies:

• Hardworking
• Honest
• Ability to work under pressure
• Commitment
• Accountability
• Project Management

Education and Training:

• Diploma/Degree Computer Science/Information Technology or related course
• A course in software project management would be a bonus

How to Apply:

Interested candidates holding the necessary requirements, good performance and / or references are encouraged to apply with detailed CV’s, inclusive of names and contacts of 3 referees, current telephone number and email address by scrolling down and clicking on: Software Engineer 

Kindly include your current and expected remuneration in your resume.

Be advised, this job is open to Kenyan nationals only

Brand Ambassadors

Brand Ambassadors (Sales Experience Required)

Our client, a global pioneer in online taxi services is recruiting for Brand Ambassadors with strong sales experience to join their team in their expansion plans. 

The world’s largest mobile taxi hailing app connects taxi drivers and passengers, allowing them to experience a fast, convenient, and safe ride, with just a tap of a button. 

Currently available in over 28 countries and 200+ cities, the app has globally redefined taxi booking.

Location: Nairobi environs

Job status: The position will be employed on a short-term, two-month contract with a possibility of contract renewal. Brand Ambassadors will make a nominal salary based on hours worked and receive bonus commissions by meeting set targets.

Strong candidates that demonstrate exceptional skill and dedication could have the possibility of a long term role in the company’s growth and marketing operations. 

 

Reporting to the Area Manager and Head of Marketing, the brand ambassador’s responsibilities will entail:

• Representing  the company at various marketing functions and events throughout Nairobi and the greater Nairobi area
• Assisting customers in downloading the application
• Assisting customers in using the application
• Providing feedback to the marketing managers on a regular basis
• Meeting and exceeding targets set by the Head of Marketing
• Providing daily reports for all events and functions the Brand Ambassadors attend on behalf of the company
• Other relevant tasks that may require the Brand Ambassadors support

Brand Ambassadors should demonstrate the following:

• Minimum of high school diploma/secondary certificate
• 2-3 years progressive sales experience
• Self-confidence
• Clear verbal communication
• Pro-active, self-starter attitude
• Energetic personality with a strong work ethic
• Reliability

Apply today by submitting your CV at jobs@adrecruitkenya.com 

About AdRecruit: We are a nationwide training and staffing company that specializes in recruiting and delivering top-notch staff for every type of experiential marketing program. We staff tours, events, street teams, trade shows, in-store demos, liquor promos and more!

Executive Assistant

Job Title: Executive Assistant
 

Location: Nairobi, with travel 
 

Reporting to: CEO
 

Job Purpose: To be the CEO's “Mr/Ms.-Fix-It”, taking responsibility for important practicalities so that the CEO is free to concentrate on the strategic matters. 

This role will have immense impact by allowing the CEO to be far more effective in his job maintaining involvement in all aspects of the business.

Roles and Responsibilities
 

Coordination of activities and Relationship management

• S/he will serve as the primary contact and coordinator for internal and external constituents;
• Coordinating executive external relations efforts;
• Researching, prioritizing, and following up on incoming issues and concerns addressed to the CEO, including those of a sensitive or confidential nature, determining appropriate course of action, referral, or response;
• Prioritizing conflicting needs; handling matters expeditiously, proactively, and following-through on projects to successful completion, often with deadline pressures;
• Acts as a "barometer," having a sense for the issues taking place in the environment and keeping the CEO updated;
• Providing "gatekeeper" and "gateway" role, creating win-win situations for direct access to the CEO's time and office;
• Act as the executive office liaison with outside business organizations and industry associations;
• Communicating directly, and on behalf of the CEO to staff members, and others, on matters related to CEO's programmatic initiatives;
• Providing a bridge for smooth communication between the CEO's office and staff; demonstrating leadership to maintain credibility, trust and support with senior management staff;

Business monitoring and general administration 

• Provide operational support for the CEO's initiatives;
• Continually keep updated on all business matters and update the CEO as necessary;
• Drafting correspondence that is sometimes confidential, speeches, presentations and even press materials and announcements from the executive office;
• Developing, annual reports and policy manuals;
• Managing an extremely active calendar of appointment; arranging complex and detailed travel plans, itineraries, and agendas; and compiling documents for travel-related meetings;

Leadership

• Attend and preside over meetings on behalf of the CEO;
• Supervision of staff, in different towns within the Eastern Region;
• Attending to all matters in a proactive manner providing solutions on behalf of the CEO where necessary and appropriate;
• Provides leadership to building relationships crucial to the success of the organization, and managing a variety of special projects for the CEO, some of which may have organizational impact;

Person Specification
 

Education and Experience

• A minimum of an upper second class bachelor degree in Business or related area from a recognized university;
• A minimum of a B+ (plus), with a minimum of B plain in Mathematics and English in KCSE or equivalent;
• At-least a year’s working experience;
• Must be Ms Office (Excel) proficient;

Critical Skills

• Excellent problem solving skills;
• Excellent  organizational skills;
• Exceptional verbal and written communication;
• Good interpersonal skills;
• Multitasking skills;

Interested candidates should send their application to the Recruiting Manager via hrmgtresources@gmail.com by 18th June 2015 stating their current and expected monthly gross salary.