Executive Head Of Department – Business Assurance

Job Description

The Executive Head of Department - Business Assurance is responsible for managing and assuring the billing of all revenue streams for Safaricom Telecommunications. A detail-oriented leader with telecom experience is sought to fill this critical role.

Responsibilities

About Us

At Safaricom Ethiopia, we are a purpose-led technology company dedicated to transforming lives through digital connectivity and inclusive financial services. In under four years, we have grown to serve over 10 million customers, with our network now reaching 55% of Ethiopia’s population – a testament to our bold vision and trusted partnerships.

Guided by core values such as customer obsession, innovation, integrity, and get it done together, we are building a workplace that is dynamic, inclusive, and empowering. We believe our greatest strength lies in our people. That’s why, for two consecutive years, we have proudly get earned the Top Employer Award – in recognition for our unwavering commitment to fostering a supportive, innovative, and inclusive environment to people.

Join Safaricom Ethiopia and be part of a team that is shaping the digital future of Ethiopia. Here, your work has meaning, your voice matters, and your growth is our priority. Together, we are transforming lives for a digital future

Role purpose:

To provide assurance to the business that all airtime revenues due to the company are captured and billed. This will be achieved by ensuring that all new products and services are adequately tested, all revenue generating systems are appropriately configured and payments to and from content providers are accurately computed and invoiced.

Key accountabilities and decision ownership:

• Oversee the functions of Revenue Assurance that include, billing assurance, channel assurance, products & promotion assurance, payments integrity and financial services assurance
• Advice the organization on any potential risks that may hinder reputation, safety, security, existence and profitability or financial prosperity of the organization in relation to our new and existing products and services
• Continuously monitor compliance with approved business rules, policies and procedures and guide the respective business functions to implement actions to address areas of non-compliance
• Ensure that all rating and billing systems are accurately set up to ensure minimal revenue loss.
• Ensure network configuration audits of the key GSM revenue generating elements (MSC, SMSC, USSD & SMPP gateways, NGN switches etc.) are performed with a view of detecting configurations that may lead to review leakages
• Manage the development of appropriate processes and procedures that will ensure all revenue streams are tracked, deviations in revenues are explained.
• Ensure that churn is monitored and correlations between churn and our entire products milestones are explained.
• Develop appropriate procedures that will ensure that the organization pays correct and optimal amounts to interconnection and premium rated service providers
• Provide proactive advice to the business by using data-driven insights and revenue risk assessments to give clear, actionable recommendations that improve product and service performance, ensure accurate reporting, and enable better decision-making.
• Continuously review the operating environment to identify new and emerging risks and advise the organization on the various means to mitigate the identified risks
• Lead system implementation initiatives and foster close engagements with Safaricom Kenya and Vodacom to ensure alignment of processes, adoption of best practices, and optimization of revenue assurance systems.
• Support revenue assurance team by creating and sustaining a cultural environment for the function shaped by the Company way of leadership
• Lead and manage the revenue assurance team, ensuring the team have clear priorities and direction and remain motivated by providing inspirational leadership and coaching

Increase the employee engagement index for the revenue assurance team in line with identified targets

Key performance indicators:

• Ensure that the organization does not exceed the defined percentage of revenue / cost exposures in all service revenue streams
• Restrict the time to detect revenue/ cost exposures in all service revenue streams to the defined SLA.
• Ensure that the organization does not exceed the defined threshold of customers by provisioning discrepancies
• Ensure 100% resolution for all issues identified with the defined SLA
• Actual and annualized amounts of revenue /cost exposures in all service revenue streams that have been averted within the financial year
• Employee engagement index is as per the defined corporate targets
• Manager Index is as per the defined corporate targets

Core competencies, knowledge and experience:

Business Competencies:

Working With Others

• Consciously takes steps to make the most of every conversation/interaction.
• Identifies people’s needs, interests and motives to be able to influence the decisions they make.
• Communicates simply to excite and engage people
• Pro-actively adapts own style and approach to build rapport, and work with others more effectively.
• Builds and maintains strong relationships and networks.

Operational Excellence

• Targets effort and resources on high-value, high impact activity.
• Focuses on achieving maximum performance and driving continuous improvement .
• Thinks about processes and problems cross-functionally and end-to-end
• Uses knowledge of products, technology, process, systems and policy to solve problems.

Creativity and Innovation

Core competencies, knowledge and experience:

Business Competencies:

Working With Others

• Consciously takes steps to make the most of every conversation/interaction.
• Identifies people’s needs, interests and motives to be able to influence the decisions they make.
• Communicates simply to excite and engage people
• Pro-actively adapts own style and approach to build rapport, and work with others more effectively.
• Builds and maintains strong relationships and networks.

Operational Excellence

• Targets effort and resources on high-value, high impact activity.
• Focuses on achieving maximum performance and driving continuous improvement .
• Thinks about processes and problems cross-functionally and end-to-end
• Uses knowledge of products, technology, process, systems and policy to solve problems.

Creativity and Innovation

• Finds creative ways to exploit opportunities and solve problems.
• Takes risks and pushes what is possible.
• Experiments with unorthodox approaches.

Business Know-how

• Uses data and research to make decisions that are competitively and financially robust.
• Balances current and future needs.
• Thinks and acts like an owner of the business.
• Acts in line with legal, regulatory, professional and ethical standards.

Working With Change

• Responds flexibly to changing situations
• Manages the business and people aspects of change to drive performance.

Project and Programme Management

• Defines scope and deliverables in terms of time, cost, quality and business benefit
• Schedules activity and identifies resource needs, dependencies and synergies
• Evaluates progress, mitigates risks and addresses issues.

Functional Competencies:

Risk Management

• Identifies and mitigates operational, financial and business risks in critical processes and projects
• Balances risk and benefits within appropriate control frameworks
• Ensures plans and controls are in place to protect value and meet regulatory requirements

Qualifications

Must have technical / professional qualifications:

• A graduate with a degree in Economics, Commerce, Engineering or IT.
• Professional certification in Auditing, accounting, risk management or information systems will be added advantage
• Relevant post-graduate education is an added advantage
• Have at least 7 years’ experience in Assurance, Risk Management and/or management of business process improvement
• Ability to analyze significant amounts of data and information and distill it to the key points that help senior management analyzes risk in a given situation.
• Capability to accumulate, summarize and interpret risk reports from business units, support units and assurance units.
• Have strong business acumen and highly developed commercial experience.
• Experience in strategic decision making
• Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills
• High level experience and skills working with stakeholders
• Financial Responsibility:
• Development and Monitoring of the Revenue Assurance budget.

Direct reports:

• Principal Revenue Assurance Analysts
• Senior Revenue Assurance Analysts
• Revenue Assurance Analysts