Lead People Partner - Technology

M-KOPA; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Join M-KOPA as a Lead People Partner to own the people agenda for our Technology organisation as we scale the infrastructure behind financial inclusion for everyday earners across Africa.

You will partner directly with the CTO and leadership across Engineering, Data, Analytics, IT and Security to translate people strategy into roadmap execution, while building a globally distributed engineering population across Africa, Europe and the UK.

Qualifications

• Senior HR leadership partnering with scaling engineering/fintech teams.
• Experience coaching HR business partners and raising performance standards.
• Deep experience in organisational design (levelling, spans & layers, function redesign).
• Strategic and operational range across long-term strategy and team-level work.
• Remote and global experience supporting diverse, multi-region teams.
• Autonomy operating at C-level and strong stakeholder management.
• UK/Europe employment law exposure with ER Centre of Excellence as reference.

Responsibilities

• Lead org design: workforce planning, levelling and team transformation for a scaling tech function.
• Own end-to-end people partnering for Engineering and Product; manage a Senior People Partner report.
• Coach and develop your direct report to set the partnering standard across the technology portfolio.
• Use people analytics to drive decisions on capability, attrition, and cost.
• Drive distributed team effectiveness in a fast-paced, multi-country environment.
• Handle complex employee relations and ER issues across jurisdictions.

Skills

HR leadership

Org design

Cross-cultural experience

Strategic mindset

C-suite stakeholder management

People analytics

Job description

Join our growing People team! We're hiring a Lead People Partner to own the people agenda for our Technology organisation as M-KOPA scales the infrastructure behind financial inclusion for everyday earners across Africa.

The Impact

Your leadership will directly shape how we build, retain and grow the engineering talent powering our mission. We've now reached 10 million customers and unlocked $2+ billion in credit across five African markets. This role sits right at the centre of the machine that makes that growth possible.

The Opportunity

Mission-driven HR: Partner directly with our CTO and their leadership team across Engineering, Data, Analytics, IT and Security – work that translates straight into digital and financial access for everyday earners

Global recognition: Join a company named by TIME 100 as one of the world's most influential, and by the Financial Times as Africa's fastest-growing company for 5 consecutive years (2022–2026)

Scale challenges: Design the org structure for a globally distributed, senior engineering population spread across Africa, Europe and the UK — scaling and reshaping at the same time

Environmental impact: Work for a carbon-negative company that has displaced over 2 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions

What You'll Do

You'll act as trusted advisor to our engineering, data and platform leaders, aligning people strategy to roadmap execution and organisational evolution. You'll hold overall accountability for people partnering across the full Technology and Product organisation, with one Senior People Partner reporting to you covering Product and adjacent functions. Your own focus is Engineering: a globally distributed, senior population where genuine fluency in how engineering organisations are built, levelled and retained matters far more than adjacency to them.

Day to day, you'll:

• Lead org design: workforce planning, levelling and team transformation in a function scaling and reshaping simultaneously
• Own Engineering and Product end to end: full accountability for people partnering across both, with a Senior People Partner reporting to you
• Lead and grow a partner: coach, develop and set direction for your direct report, building the partnering standard for the whole technology portfolio
• Use people analytics to inform action: partner with Centres of Excellence to turn data into decisions on capability, attrition and cost
• Drive distributed team effectiveness: optimise performance, engagement and team dynamics in a fast-paced, asynchronous, multi-country environment
• Handle complex employee relations: own the senior and sensitive end of the ER caseload for your portfolio

Your Environment

• Reporting line: People Director, alongside a peer group of senior partners covering our operating markets
• Client group: CTO and their leadership team across Engineering, Data, Analytics, IT and Security, plus accountability for Product via your direct report
• Team: one Senior People Partner reporting to you
• Population: globally distributed, senior engineering talent, majority based across Africa, Europe and the UK

Our Approach

• We scale and reshape our engineering function at the same time, so org design here is a live, ongoing discipline, not a one-off project
• We hold both a portfolio and a team in this role, which is unusual even within our own People function
• We lean on Centres of Excellence for data and specialist ER support, freeing you to focus on judgement and stakeholder relationships
• We expect direct engagement with C-level leaders, with genuine autonomy attached

What You Need

We're looking for someone who has partnered closely with engineering, data or platform leadership in a scaling technology or fintech business, and genuinely understands how those functions work.

Required Experience

• Senior HR experience partnering with engineering organisations in a scaling technology or fintech business
• Experience leading or formally coaching HR business partners, with the ability to raise the standard of someone else's work
• Proven org design depth: you've led real structural change (levelling, spans and layers, function redesign), not just supported it
• Strategic and operational range: equally comfortable designing long-term org strategy and working at team level
• Remote and global savvy: experience supporting cross-cultural teams across multiple regions
• Strong business acumen: able to translate between people priorities and business outcomes at leadership level
• Comfortable operating with autonomy at C-level
• Employee relations judgement across more than one jurisdiction, knowing when to own it and when to bring in specialists (UK/Europe employment law exposure is useful given where much of the engineering population sits, but not essential — we have an ER Centre of Excellence for statutory depth)

Location & Benefits

• Fully Remote role - Can be Based in the UK, Nigeria or specific locations across Europe
• Reports to the People Director
• Professional development and coaching partnerships
• Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements
• Well-being support and career growth opportunities
• Direct exposure to our CTO and CPO, with real influence over leadership-level people decisions

Our Mission

We create financial inclusion for the traditionally excluded through a fair, flexible, customer‑centric financing model, driving greater inclusion of women, youth and low‑income communities.

Our Impact

• Included: 10 million customers, $2+ billion in credit unlocked since 2010
• Prosperous: 70% of customers use their M‑KOPA product for income generation, 35,000 livelihoods created for sales agents
• Green: over 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided, with 127,700 circular economy products sold since 2010

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-kopa.com.

Recognized four times by the Financial Times as one Africa's fastest growing companies (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026), named on CNBC's World’s Top Fintech Companies 2025 & 2026 and by TIME100 Most influential companies in the world 2023 and 2024 , we've served over 10 million customers, unlocking $2 billion in cumulative credit for the everyday earners across Africa, in addition to over 10,000 e-bikes financed in Kenya.

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.

If your application is successful M‑KOPA undertakes pre‑employment background checks as part of its recruitment process, these include; criminal records, identification verification, academic qualifications, employment dates and employer references.