Senior Lead - HR Shared Services & Employee Relations

[https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/5ac97b31-49cd-4012-8bb0-5caf15e33c69/B25.png] WE ARE LOOKING FOR A SENIOR LEAD - SHARED SERVICES & EMPLOYEE RELATIONS TO JOIN OUR HUMAN RESOURCES GROUP; AS WE SCALE UP AND DRIVE DIGITAL AND FINANCIAL INCLUSION ACROSS OUR MARKETS. [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/2c6957b4-39d2-40b3-8eb6-7e380a0c2f9c/B13.png] BUILDING HR INFRASTRUCTURE THAT HOLDS A COMPANY TOGETHER AT SCALE The best HR leaders don't just keep operations running—they build the systems that allow a growing organization to stay coherent, compliant, and human as it scales. That's the mandate for this role. At M-KOPA, HR isn't a support function sitting behind the business. It's the operational spine that enables 2,300 employees and 35,000 agents to deliver financial access to people who've never had it. M-KOPA has grown from 5 million customers to 7 million and is building toward 10 million. That kind of growth doesn't sustain itself without serious HR foundations—which is precisely why this hire is being made now, deliberately and not reactively. [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/5e9f3448-2fed-4b66-b1ee-9474279a7947/B13.png] WHY THIS TIMING MATTERS Having crossed $2 billion in credit unlocked, assembled 2 million smartphones in Kenya, and financed over 4,000 e-motorbikes across our markets, we're at an inflection point. The 5M-to-7M journey required building fast. The 7M-to-10M journey requires building right. That means rearchitecting how HR works—not simply maintaining what exists. Whoever joins at this moment has the opportunity to shape the operating model during the transition, not inherit it after the decisions have already been made. [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/ed8f730c-2cd3-4743-a1a6-1573989c6fb8/M-KOPA%20Pic.jpg] REPORTING STRUCTURE Reports to the Head of HR Shared Services WHAT THE ROLE INVOLVES IN PRACTICE Leading complex employee relations matters end-to-end: investigations into harassment, discrimination, and misconduct; strategic advice to senior leadership on disciplinary actions and legal risk; and developing the ER policy frameworks that ensure consistent, compliant practice across all operating markets. Serving as the organization's subject matter expert on labour relations: policy development aligned to local legislation. Running HR Shared Services operations with precision: overseeing contracts, records governance, payroll input readiness, offboarding, and SLA performance across a multi-country employee base, while building the dashboards and reporting infrastructure that make the function visible and continuously improvable. ER work at M-KOPA's scale — spanning seven markets, diverse employment contexts, and a high-velocity workforce — generates a body of case data that holds far more insight than the individual cases themselves. Trends in grievance types, repeat misconduct categories, investigation cycle times, market-level ER risk concentrations, and policy breach patterns are all signals waiting to be read. This role is expected to bring genuine analytical rigour to that data: identifying what is systemic versus isolated, advising leadership with evidence rather than instinct, and using those insights to drive targeted policy intervention and preventive action before issues escalate. At M-KOPA, ER leadership is not just reactive case management — it is intelligence-led people risk governance. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR An HR professional with demonstrable experience heavily focused on employee relations and employment law, combined with operational HR or Shared Services leadership—with exposure spanning Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe (UK experience strongly preferred). Established expertise in conducting complex workplace investigations, advising senior management on legal and compliance risk, and deve