Job Title:  Zambia Senior Credit Manager 

Department : Customer Finance

Reporting Line : Zambia Head of Customer Finance

Location : Zambia

About ENGIE Energy Access (EEA)  

ENGIE Energy Access is the leading Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGo) and mini-grids solutions provider in Africa. The company develops innovative, off-grid solar solutions for homes, public services and businesses, enabling customers and distribution partners access to clean, affordable energy. The PAYGO solar home systems are financed through affordable instalments from $0.19 per day and the mini-grids foster economic development by enabling electrical productive use and triggering business opportunities for entrepreneurs in rural communities. With over 1,700 employees, operations in nine countries across Africa (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia), over 1.6 million customers and more than 8 million lives impacted so far, ENGIE Energy Access aims to impact 20 million lives across Africa by 2025.  

www.engie-energyaccess.com  

https://www.linkedin.com/company/3055106  

Job Overview  

The Senior Credit Manager will be a critical driver in a  highly motivated, experienced and energetic  credit team. The role will create a record of success in advanced credit risk analysis and management pulling on experiences in the microfinance and/or banking industry.  The role will report to the  Head of Customer finance  and will work cross-functionally with our customer experience, product development, operations, marketing, and technical teams on the ground to  improve,  scale and  sustain a  best-in-class credit and financial services operation and to provide an exceptional experience to our customers.  

This position  will make a  direct impact on the lives of a largely unbanked customer base with limited access to traditional finance and clean energy. The right candidate will be a fierce team player and committed people manager, with a passion for seeing new approaches through from idea, to testing, to scale, and an ability to build out the systems and processes to ensure high performance over time.  

Key Responsibilities   

• Responsible for proactive and sustainable management and monitoring of credit risk at both a portfolio and a customer account level  
• Grow, manage and sustain credit team operations with high-impact and right-sized structures, tools, standards and systems.  
• Provide strong leadership and management for all credit managers, providing coaching and capacity development for the Zambia team members involved in the credit process.  
• Ensure company culture reflects an understanding of and passion for responsible financial services, and shared accountability for credit risk management.  
• Responsible for credit risk restructuring and successful implementation of portfolio de-concentration strategies  
• Ensuring the optimal quality of the credit portfolio by application of best practice in decision-making, to a maximum lending discretion
• Responsible for developing practical and appropriate credit solutions (i.e. lending structures) through understanding customers’ needs
• Maintaining integrity of the loan management systems ensuring financial and other information is updated, consistent and accurate   
• Actively managing the new business options to grow the loan portfolio of the business  
• Liaison person for all committees and transversals projects with linkages to Customer Finance   
• Preparation of various risk, risk appetite tracking and amendment proposals where there is need   
• Policy lead for all risk related matters and committees (operational, fraud, credit risk etc)  
• Inform pricing and product strategies to support the company’s strategic objectives regarding credit and customer repayment  
• Lead the credit risk committee and ensure credit risk is accurately reported, and adequately provisioned
• Envision, implement and manage the systems, tools, structures, team and processes needed to support a highly effective and efficient credit operation that can serve hundreds of thousands of customers, localizing company standards wherever possible

Project Management?  

• Responsible for leading operational projects within and beyond CF and supporting key team members in strategic decision-making.?  
• Sign off on project assignments and follow up with project team members to ensure that all project deliverables are met on time, within brief, and on budget?  
• Support project team with external negotiations where needed to drive strategic initiatives?  
• Keep stakeholders informed about status of projects and deliverables?  

Cost Management & Budgeting?  

• Create, follow up, and report on KPIs and objectives connected to project responsibility, demonstrating added customer value and/or return on investment whenever possible.?  
• Support the Head of Department through planning, forecasting, and signing off on budgets allocated  
• Manage and optimize team budgets with a cost-conscious but also growth mindset?  

Team?Management  

• Recruitment, management and retaining teams to include performance management, skills training, providing feedback for continuous improvement, professional development, culture, and team motivation.   
• Incentivise operating structures that drive both team / individual performance  
• Secure proactive and reactive check-ins on daily operations to ensure that fast actions / decisions are taken and prioritized?  
• Standardize team value proposition and development path  

  Knowledge and skills ? Experience :   

• Experience in a comparable sector, such as in digital financial services, in a telecom, or for a financial institution (particularly where the customer base was similar to ours)  
• Experience with customer segmentation and customer profiling / personas  
• Proven experience with credit collections strategies with track record on reduced portfolio risk and write offs   
• Ability to demonstrate proactivity and independent task execution  
• Exceptional interpersonal & customer service skills  
• Strong verbal and written communication, and conflict resolution skills
• Familiarity with company products, services, and policies
• Strong coaching and leadership skills, ability to motivate employees
• High level of emotional intelligence  
• Strong  c ritical thinking , analytical   & problem solving  skills (ability to think outside the box)  
• Flexibility with ability to work under pressure to meet deadlines  
• Willingness to travel  

Qualifications :   

• 5 years minimum work experience, at least 2 of which was in a role which involved credit risk management, strategy development and people management.  
• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Economics, or any related qualification  
• Work experience in related areas such as project management, financial services, data analysis, or field team management  
• Demonstrated ability to manage projects and teams, especially in a high-growth and performance-driven environment  
• High level of comfort working with data, with the ability to translate analysis to insights, and insights to action  
• Commitment to spending time in the field to support and mentor field teams  
• Passion for the company and our customers

Language(s): ?   

• English   
• Local languages are  a plus  

We thank all applicants for their interest, however due to the large volume of applications we receive, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.   

ENGIE is an equal opportunity employer, promoting diversity and committed to creating an inclusive environment for all. All applications are screened based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without any regard to origin, age, name, sexual identity, orientation or preference, religion, marital status, health, disability, political opinions, union involvement or citizenship. Our differences are our strengths!