Head of Design | M-KOPA

Elevate Design's Strategic Influence in One of Africa's Most Innovative Fintechs
Lead Design That Powers Financial Inclusion for Millions
From our vibrant Nairobi headquarters, you'll have the opportunity to reshape how design drives business strategy and customer experience at a crucial growth moment. As M-KOPA's Head of Design, you'll lead and evolve our Product Design function, ensuring cohesive, high-quality user experiences across all touchpoints for customers across multiple African markets.

Your Strategic Impact

This isn't just a design leadership role—it's a chance to demonstrate how exceptional design directly contributes to business success and customer empowerment. You'll sit at the intersection of business strategy and user needs, translating complex financial products into intuitive, accessible experiences.

Your design leadership will help transform lives: A small business owner who can easily navigate loan management tools. A first-time smartphone user who confidently explores financial services. A family that easily tracks their payment progress toward ownership of essential devices. These real-world outcomes start with the design experiences you'll oversee.

What Makes This Role Unique

At M-KOPA, design isn't an afterthought—it's central to our mission of creating transformative financial partnerships. You'll co-lead alongside other functional heads, maintaining a horizontal perspective across our entire product ecosystem.

Working from Nairobi puts you at the heart of one of Africa's most dynamic tech hubs, with direct access to our core market and the ability to observe firsthand how customers interact with our products.

Your Day-to-Day Influence

Each day will bring diverse challenges that stretch your design leadership capabilities:

You might start your morning collaborating with Product Management and Tech leadership to define overall UX strategy for a new financial product. By midday, you could be reviewing design work to ensure quality and cohesion before release.

Your afternoon might involve mentoring members of your hybrid team. Later, you might meet with the marketing team to ensure visual cohesion across the M-KOPA brand.

Throughout it all, you'll be demonstrating the business impact your design team is having, translating design metrics into business outcomes that executives understand and value.

Join Us in Nairobi

Based at our Nairobi headquarters, you'll be immersed in one of Africa's most vibrant tech ecosystems. You'll collaborate with talented colleagues who share your passion for impact-driven design.

At M-KOPA, we foster a culture where design excellence is celebrated. Your leadership will further elevate this culture, creating an environment where designers thrive and their work directly contributes to our mission of financial inclusion.

Your Growth Journey With Us

As you lead our design function, you'll also have opportunities to grow your own career. You'll gain expertise in designing for inclusive financial services across diverse markets.

You'll lead the integration of AI-enhanced design processes, finding new ways to leverage technology while maintaining the human-centered approach essential for our diverse customer base.

The relationships you build across East Africa's tech community, the design expertise you develop in emerging markets, and the business acumen you gain from positioning design strategically—all these will become invaluable assets in your career journey.

Ready to Lead Transformative Design?

If you're excited about applying your design leadership to create meaningful change at scale, we want to hear from you. Join M-KOPA and help us continue building transformative financial partnerships through the power of exceptional design.

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 thrice by the Financial Times as one of Africa's fastest growing companies (2022, 2023 and 2024) and by TIME100 Most influential companies in the world 2023 and 2024, we've served over 5 million customers, unlocking $1.5 billion in cumulative credit for the unbanked across Africa.

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.

• Proven experience leading design teams and complex projects in digital products, preferably in fintech or similar industries
• Deep understanding of UX strategy with the ability to balance business goals with user needs across multiple touchpoints
• Experience building and maintaining design systems that ensure visual cohesion while enabling rapid innovation