Product Manager: Digital Financial Services

About Fenix

Fenix International is a next-generation energy company.  Our mission is to transform our customers’ quality of life through disruptive innovation in energy and financial services. Our flagship product, ReadyPay Solar, is an expandable, lease-to-own solar home system financed through affordable instalments starting under $0.19 per day. We use real-time transaction data to create a unique credit score to finance power upgrades and other life-changing loans and open up a wider world of energy and financing for our customers.

To date, Fenix has sold over 170,000 ReadyPay Power systems in Uganda and Zambia, bringing clean, reliable power for lights, phones, radios, TV and much more to over one million people.  In 2017, Fenix announced that it was joining forces with ENGIE, one of the world’s largest energy companies and a leader in the move to renewable, decentralised and digital energy.  ENGIE will make significant commercial investments in Fenix to accelerate the path to our mission. Fenix will operate as a distinct and autonomous company within the ENGIE group in order to retain our unrelenting focus on innovation, smart iterative design, strong team culture and exceptional customer experience. Together, Fenix and ENGIE plan to bring life-changing energy and financial services to tens of millions of off-grid customers and to make universal access to modern energy a reality across Africa.

Job Description

With thousands of customers, who make millions of ReadyPay payments, we have developed a unique credit score, and a strong relationship with our customers. This enables us to provide financing for our customers’ growing energy needs and additional life-changing products. Our customers typically have very limited access to formal financial services. By bringing these households into the ReadyPay platform, we can open huge new opportunities through financial inclusion.

As Product Manager for Digital Financial Services at Fenix, you will own the end-to-end process of designing, implementing, monitoring, and scaling new financial products sold over our platform. This is an exciting role which requires strategic visioning as well as operational execution,  working cross-functionally with our customer service, operations, sales, marketing, and technical teams on the ground. Above all, you have to fully embody one of our core values; “Think Big and Make It Happen”.

To excel at this role, you will have a close understanding of the needs and aspirations of rural households in our target markets; have the imagination and drive to design and deliver life-changing products to our customers; and have the strategic vision to understand where our financial products can take Fenix and our customers as we scale to millions.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Manage product roadmap and rollout for ReadyPay financial services from concept to launch.
  • Manage cross-functional teams to successfully deliver product testing and scaling, including:
    • Software for product specifications and development
    • Sales for strategy and training
    • Customer experience for troubleshooting and training
  • Monitor product and portfolio health, and customer behaviour data, while ensuring products work towards, and maintain commercial viability.
  • Run A/B tests to determine the impact and sustainability of our financial products.
  • Build and maintain relationships with strategic partners
  • Contribute to product team’s evaluation and prioritization of new products to test

Required Skills & Experience

  • A commitment to improving the quality of life of our customers
  • 2+ years of experience in a fast-paced, high-responsibility environment (e.g. a startup, innovative telco, fintech or microfinance organisation)
  • Ability to maintain big-picture vision while simultaneously focusing on the minute details – Think big and make it happen!
  • Ability to use data to make smart decisions (when possible) and the ability to make gut calls when necessary
  • Leadership and project management experience: we are looking for entrepreneurial candidates who have started or contributed significantly to a particular project, team, or new company and we especially value candidates who have seen projects through from start to finish, from design to scale up phase
  • Strong interpersonal skills to interface with all members of both the Fenix team and external partners
  • Commitment to live and work with Fenix in East Africa for at least 2 years
  • Outstanding written and verbal communications skills in English, French a plus
  • Thrives on teamwork
  • Bachelor’s degree
  • Education and/or work experience in a developing economy

Highly Desired Skills

  • Stat programming, Tableau, and MySQL database familiarity
  • Experience working with Mobile money and digital financial service products
  • Strong understanding and a commitment to pushing the boundaries of financial inclusion

Compensation details

  • Competitive salary and benefits package, including health insurance & evacuation cover
  • Awesome off-sites rafting, climbing, kayaking
  • The opportunity to travel throughout East Africa
  • A fun and friendly work environment with ping-pong, table football and delicious lunch and dinner cooked every day by our in-house chefs, Carol & Lilian