Safaricom is looking for a Lead - Wholesale & Carrier to drive the strategic and commercial success of its wholesale business unit. The role involves managing annual revenue and gross margin targets across interconnect, roaming, capacity, and international voice/data streams. You will be responsible for developing multi-year growth plans, optimizing the revenue mix, and identifying new monetization opportunities such as infrastructure sharing and cross-border capacity sales. Additionally, the role entails managing strategic partnerships with domestic and international carriers, negotiating bilateral agreements, and ensuring regulatory compliance and financial integrity across all wholesale operations.
Key Responsibilities
Wholesale Revenue Growth & Portfolio Optimization
- Deliver annual revenue and gross margin targets across interconnect, roaming, capacity, and international voice/data streams.
- Develop multi-year wholesale growth plans aligned to traffic trends, network evolution, and competitive dynamics.
- Optimize revenue mix across inbound and outbound traffic to maximize margin contribution.
- Identify new wholesale monetization opportunities including infrastructure sharing and cross-border capacity sales.
- Drive traffic growth strategies leveraging bilateral and multilateral carrier agreements.
- Monitor performance against budget and implement corrective actions to protect profitability.
Carrier Partnership Strategy & Relationship Management
- Develop and manage strategic relationships with domestic and international carrier partners.
- Negotiate bilateral agreements covering roaming, interconnect, and international traffic exchange.
- Conduct regular business reviews with key carrier partners to align commercial performance and traffic targets.
- Identify partnership expansion opportunities across regional and global markets.
- Manage partner performance scorecards including revenue realization and settlement accuracy.
- Safeguard long-term partnership sustainability through transparent governance and dispute resolution mechanisms.
Interconnect & Roaming Governance
- Oversee interconnect frameworks ensuring regulatory compliance and financial integrity.
- Manage roaming agreements including pricing, clearing, and settlement structures.
- Ensure accurate traffic measurement, rating, and reconciliation processes.
- Monitor inbound and outbound roaming performance and margin contribution.
- Lead dispute management processes with domestic and international operators.
- Continuously optimize interconnect pricing structures aligned to regulatory guardrails.
International Voice & Data Monetization
- Develop competitive routing strategies to maximize international voice margins.
- Negotiate international termination and transit rates to protect cost position.
- Monitor traffic flows to detect fraud, leakage, or routing inefficiencies.
- Optimize international data capacity utilization and cross-border bandwidth sales.
- Partner with Technology teams to align network capacity planning with commercial demand forecasts.
- Drive margin improvement initiatives through cost optimization and traffic rebalancing.
Capacity & Infrastructure Commercialization
- Monetize fiber, subsea cable, and infrastructure capacity through structured commercial agreements.
- Develop capacity pricing models aligned to market demand and competitive benchmarks.
- Partner with Technology to forecast infrastructure expansion opportunities.
- Lead infrastructure-sharing agreements and related commercial negotiations.
- Monitor utilization rates and drive initiatives to improve asset yield.
- Evaluate new infrastructure investment opportunities from a wholesale commercial perspective.
Regulatory & Compliance Oversight
- Ensure adherence to national and international telecom regulations governing interconnect and roaming.
- Maintain compliance with cross-border settlement standards and industry clearing frameworks.
- Partner with External Affairs to monitor regulatory changes impacting wholesale economics.
- Ensure alignment with competition law and anti-trust provisions in carrier agreements.
- Support audit processes related to wholesale settlements and traffic reporting.
- Embed risk mitigation frameworks for regulatory and contractual exposure.
Financial Settlement & Risk Governance
- Oversee traffic billing, reconciliation, and settlement accuracy across all wholesale streams.
- Monitor and reduce revenue leakage risks through structured controls.
- Partner with Finance to ensure timely settlement of receivables and payables.
- Improve Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) for wholesale receivables.
- Conduct periodic margin and profitability analysis for wholesale portfolio.
- Maintain a wholesale risk register covering financial, regulatory, and operational risks.
Leadership & Talent Development
- Coach, mentor, and empower the leadership team to drive strategic excellence, collaboration, and disruptive thinking.
- Drive diversity, inclusion, and leadership bench strength, ensuring succession readiness for pivotal roles within the function.
- Build critical capabilities through targeted hiring and continuous learning programs.
- Institutionalize a functional Academy - develop playbooks, methodologies, and training for execution.
- Embed OKRs and a performance-driven culture, aligning incentives to strategic impact.
- Champion cross-functional collaboration across Safaricom to ensure integrated delivery of products.
- Lead change management for major shifts (new operating models, innovation platforms) with clear narratives.
- Foster a culture of agility and experimentation, encouraging teams to pilot emerging technologies.
- Model ethical leadership and values, reinforcing integrity and transparency.
- Ensure governance and compliance in all initiatives, safeguarding organizational reputation.
- Champion adoption of emerging technologies (AI, IoT, cloud, blockchain) to enable digital transformation.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering, Electrical Engineering, ICT, Computer Science, Business Administration, Economics, or a related field from a recognized institution.
- Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA), Telecommunications Management, Finance, or Strategic Management is an added advantage.
- Minimum of 10–12 years’ progressive experience in wholesale telecommunications, carrier business, interconnect, roaming, or international voice and data operations.
- Demonstrated experience managing wholesale and carrier revenue streams.
- Strong commercial acumen with proven experience in bilateral carrier negotiations, pricing frameworks, and margin optimization.
- Proven experience in managing cross-border carrier partnerships and international traffic routing strategies.
- Understanding of telecom regulatory frameworks, interconnect obligations, roaming standards, and competition law.
- Experience in traffic billing, reconciliation processes, settlement systems, and revenue assurance controls.
- Professional certification such as PMP, PRINCE2, or ITIL is an added advantage.
- Knowledge of telecom network architecture, subsea capacity commercialization, and infrastructure sharing.
- Experience in highly matrixed environments.
- Member in good standing of a recognized professional body.
How to Apply
Interested and qualified? Go to Safaricom Kenya on egjd.fa.us6.oraclecloud.com to apply.
