Background

Protecting 25,000 field agents across Africa from real-world risks

Every day, more than 25,000 M-KOPA sales agents walk the streets of Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, and South Africa—connecting millions of customers to life-changing financial products. It's high-impact work, but it's not without risk. Street crime, harassment, and gender-based violence are real threats for M-KOPA agents —especially for women in the field.

We're creating a new global role to build a safety strategy that truly protects field agents. This isn't about machinery or factory compliance. It's about keeping people safe from people—through smart systems, prevention, and response.

The Opportunity

You'll design and lead M-KOPA's field safety strategy across five markets—building practical systems that reduce risk, protect our agents, and build trust. You'll define what good looks like: proactive risk mapping, rapid response mechanisms, trusted grievance channels, and partnerships that strengthen safety in every market.

Your work will directly impact 25,000+ frontline agents—and the 7 million customers they serve.

What You'll Do

• Lead M-KOPA's global field safety framework, focusing on personal security and gender-based risk.
• Conduct risk assessments and develop targeted prevention and response strategies.
• Build trusted reporting and support systems for agents who face threats or violence.
• Partner with Sales, Legal, Audit, Risk & Compliance, HR, and external security/GBV experts to deliver scalable protection programs.
• Use data to monitor emerging risks and guide leadership decisions.
• Champion a culture where every agent feels seen, heard, and safe.

You'll spend your first 90 days conducting systematic risk assessments across all five markets, identifying the highest-priority safety gaps and vulnerabilities. You'll interview sales leaders, DSRs, country teams. You'll examine incident data, audit findings, existing protocols. You'll emerge with a comprehensive remediation roadmap—not a document that sits on a shelf, but an executable plan with clear ownership, milestones, and measurable outcomes.

Then you build. You'll design grievance mechanisms that field agents actually trust and use. You'll create training programs that embed safety thinking into onboarding and ongoing development. You'll establish quarterly OKRs that tie safety performance to business metrics. You'll implement monitoring dashboards that give real-time visibility into safety metrics and emerging risks across the entire network.

You'll also lead partnerships—with external security vendors, technology providers, specialized GBVH service providers—ensuring our sales force has access to protection capabilities that match the complexity of their operating environment.

What You Bring

• Experience designing and implementing personal safety, field security, or GBV prevention programs in complex, multi-country environments.
• A track record in organizations with large field teams (e.g. telecom, FMCG, NGOs, or financial services).
• Strong understanding of community risk, crisis response, and gendered safety.
• Ability to influence senior leaders and build systems that work across diverse cultural and regulatory contexts.

Why It Matters

Your frameworks will protect the people who power financial inclusion across Africa—and set a new industry standard for field safety.

Location: Flexible across our African markets, with travel expected.

Reports to: Director of Customer Care & Retail, with dotted-line collaboration to Sales and Country GMs.

• Lead M-KOPA's global field safety framework, focusing on personal security and gender-based risk
• Conduct risk assessments and develop targeted prevention and response strategies
• Build trusted reporting and support systems for agents who face threats or violence
• Partner with Sales, Legal, Audit, Risk & Compliance, HR, and external security/GBV experts to deliver scalable protection programs
• Use data to monitor emerging risks and guide leadership decisions
• Champion a culture where every agent feels seen, heard, and safe
• Conduct systematic risk assessments across all five markets
• Identify highest-priority safety gaps and vulnerabilities
• Interview sales leaders, DSRs, country teams
• Examine incident data, audit findings, existing protocols
• Develop comprehensive remediation roadmap with clear ownership, milestones, and measurable outcomes
• Design grievance mechanisms that field agents actually trust and use
• Create training programs that embed safety thinking into onboarding and ongoing development
• Establish quarterly OKRs that tie safety performance to business metrics
• Implement monitoring dashboards that give real-time visibility into safety metrics and emerging risks
• Lead partnerships with external security vendors, technology providers, specialized GBVH service providers

• Experience designing and implementing personal safety, field security, or GBV prevention programs
• Strong understanding of community risk, crisis response, and gendered safety
• Ability to influence senior leaders
• Ability to build systems that work across diverse cultural and regulatory contexts
• Risk assessment and analysis
• Strategic planning and implementation
• Partnership development and management
• Data analysis and monitoring
• Training program development

• Experience designing and implementing personal safety, field security, or GBV prevention programs in complex, multi-country environments
• Track record in organizations with large field teams (e.g. telecom, FMCG, NGOs, or financial services)
• Strong understanding of community risk, crisis response, and gendered safety
• Ability to influence senior leaders and build systems that work across diverse cultural and regulatory contexts