Senior Specialist - Data Product Manager.Consumer Prepaid

Company Overview, Vision & Values

We at MTNSA are a purpose and value-led organisation.

At MTNSA, we believe that understanding our people’s needs and aspirations is key to creating experiences that delight you at work, every day. We are committed to fostering an environment where every member of our Y’ello Family is heard, understood and empowered to live an inspired life.

Our values keep us grounded and moving in the right direction. Most importantly, they keep us honest. It is not something we claim to be. It is in our DNA.

As an organisation, we consider it our mission to create an exciting and rewarding place to work, where our people can be themselves, thrive in positivity and ignite their full potential. A workplace that boosts creativity and innovation, improves productivity, and ultimately drives meaningful results. A workplace that is built on relationships and achieving a purpose that is bigger than us. This is what we want you to experience with us!

Our commitments go beyond an organisational promise. It is in our leadership and managerial ethos to meaningfully partner with our employees, customers and stakeholders with a vision to realise our shared goals.

We are delighted that you are considering us as your career partner to make a mark in the world. We look forward to your application!

Mission/ Core purpose of the Job

To design, develop, and commercialise MTN South Africa’s big data products, transforming raw network, digital, and transactional datasets into actionable, privacy-safe insights that drive measurable business outcomes.

The role ensures that MTN’s large-scale data assets are fit-for-purpose, revenue-generating, and embedded across internal and external ecosystems—from advanced segmentation and predictive analytics, to partner activations and attribution models.

As the custodian of MTN’s data product portfolio, the Data Product Manager bridges technical and commercial teams, ensuring that big data architecture, governance, and monetisation are consistently aligned with MTN’s growth strategy and competitive positioning in the digital economy.
 

Key Activities & Responsibilities

Strategy Enablement
• Shape and drive MTN’s overall data monetisation strategy, identifying emerging trends, regulatory shifts, and opportunities to build
competitive advantage across industries.
• Translate MTN’s first-party data assets into market-ready products that balance privacy, compliance, and commercial value.
• Influence MTN’s data roadmap by anticipating client and partner demand across large enterprises, SMME’s, public enterprises and
content partners, ensuring MTN remains relevant against global competitors like Google and Meta.
• Develop and continuously refine the value proposition for MTN’s data products, positioning them as key enablers of growth for both
internal stakeholders and external clients.
• Provide strategic input to the business on investment prioritisation, ensuring resources are focused on high-potential data
opportunities.
 

• Operational Delivery (Data Products)
• • End-to-End Product Lifecycle
• Manage the full lifecycle of MTN’s big data-driven products and solutions — from ideation and market validation, to MVP build, pilot
• execution, and scaled rollout. Ensure advanced analytics and predictive insights are embedded into every stage.
• • Product Requirements & Roadmaps
• Define specifications and functional roadmaps, translating business and customer needs into actionable requirements for
• development teams, underpinned by big data analysis and interpretation across telco, digital, and transactional datasets.
• • Cross-Functional Delivery
• Lead collaboration with marketing, compliance, legal, technology, and commercial teams to launch products on time and within scope,
• ensuring privacy-by-design (POPIA/GDPR compliance) is integrated into all development processes.
• • Big Data Commercialisation
• Oversee the design of derived datasets and advanced segmentations (demographic, behavioural, geospatial, predictive ML),
• productising them into scalable offerings that unlock revenue growth, CPM uplift, and monetisation via marketplaces and APIs.
• • Performance & Measurement
• Establish and track key KPIs including industry-aligned match rates (data quality), revenue uplift from big data-driven campaigns,
• product adoption rates, and attribution impact on sales. Use A/B testing and control-vs-exposed methodologies to measure value.
• • Partner & Ecosystem Integration
• Champion the integration of MTN’s enriched datasets into partner ecosystems (e.g., Novatiq, Omnisient, Vicinity) to unlock joint
• monetisation streams and enhanced targeting capabilities.
• • Enablement & Knowledge Sharing
• Build packaged use cases and sales materials to enable adoption internally and with partners. Facilitate capability-building sessions
• across commercial, sales, and partner teams to maximise the value of MTN’s big data and analytics platforms.

Customer Engagement & Relationship Building
• Partner with business units and external partners to identify data-driven opportunities, define requirements, and ensure alignment
with MTN’s monetisation strategy.
• Translate market needs and business challenges into actionable product requirements, driving the design and launch of scalable data
products.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with internal stakeholders and ecosystem partners to accelerate adoption of MTN’s data
solutions.
• Drive go-to-market readiness by ensuring products are fit-for-purpose, measurable, and commercially viable.
• Provide commercial and technical input to evaluate and prioritise data product opportunities, including attribution, segmentation, and
offline-to-online conversion.
• Act as a subject matter expert in customer conversations, positioning MTN’s data assets as differentiated value against competitors.

Governance, Policies, Procedures
• Ensure data products are built and deployed in line with MTN’s data governance, privacy, and compliance standards.
• Establish clear KPIs for product adoption, data match rates, and commercial impact, and track performance against these metrics.
• Manage risks, dependencies, and escalations across multiple teams to ensure timely and high-quality delivery of products.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration (product, commercial, analytics, legal, partnerships) to resolve issues and drive joint initiatives.
• Continuously review and refine product processes, ensuring compliance with policies, SLAs, and customer experience standards.
• Support the creation of derived data sets and new methodologies to maximise the utility and market relevance of MTN’s first-party
data.

• Budget Management/ Cost Control
• • Identify cost-saving opportunities within data product development and operations while ensuring resource requirements are
• effectively met.
• • Optimize data-related investments (e.g., enrichment, partnerships, tooling) to balance efficiency with value creation.
• • Proactively surface new revenue opportunities through product commercialization and data-driven business models.

People & Culture Management
• Drive ongoing development of self and contribute to building communities of practice around data and product innovation.
• Foster cross-functional collaboration by coaching and guiding colleagues where needed, promoting teamwork across product,
commercial, and analytics domains.
• Champion a culture of high performance, accountability, and continuous improvement in data product delivery.
• Act as an ambassador for MTN’s data strategy, modelling the brand values and inspiring others to embrace data-driven ways of
working.
• Take ownership of personal development, staying current on data product management, monetisation trends, and regulatory
standards.
• Contribute to making the team and environment the best place to work by fostering professionalism, loyalty, and a strong sense of
purpose.

• Job Outcomes / Results
• • Big Data Product Development & Delivery: Design,build, and deploy big data-driven products that are fit-for-purpose, scalable, and compliant.
• • Revenue & Commercial Impact: Unlock measurable revenue uplift through data monetisation, CPM uplift, and partner activations.
• • Data Quality & Governance: Ensure industryaligned match rates, integrity of large-scale datasets, and compliance with privacy and governance standards (POPIA/GDPR).
• • Sales Enablement: Equip sales teams with actionable big data products, enriched audience packs, and attribution tools to drive adoption.
• • Stakeholder Alignment & Adoption: Drive adoption of big data solutions across MTN business units, external partners, and ecosystems.
• • Performance Measurement & Reporting: Provide data-driven dashboards and analytics on adoption, conversion Individual contributor uplift, and revenue impact.

Education, Skills and Experience

Education
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, or related field.
• Postgraduate qualification (preferred): MBA, Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Business, or equivalent in Data/Innovation Management.

Experience
• At least 5 years in product management, data monetisation, or big data product development, preferably in telecoms, fintech, or technology
sectors.
• 3–5 years’ experience creating and delivering data products from large-scale telco, digital, or transactional datasets, translating business needs into actionable solutions.
• Proven ability to design, launch, and scale multiple big data products, ensuring measurable commercial uplift or adoption impact.
• Experience working across diverse cultures and geographies is advantageous.
• Previous exposure to enterprise-scale data environments and complex stakeholder landscapes.

Skills
• Big data analysis and interpretation across telco, digital, and transactional datasets.
• Data architecture & pipeline understanding (data lakes, warehousing, cloud-native solutions).
• Familiarity with machine learning models, segmentation, and predictive analytics.
• Privacy-by-design mindset with knowledge of POPIA/GDPR compliance.
• Proven track record of turning enriched data into monetisable products (audience marketplaces, CPM uplift, API strategies).

As part of MTN’s recruitment process, your personal information may be processed using secure Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to assist with the shortlisting of candidates. This is done in compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). By applying for this position, you consent to the processing of your personal information for recruitment purposes. All data will be handled securely and used solely for evaluating suitability for the role.

We are a purpose and value-led organization.

At MTN, we believe that understanding our people’s needs and aspirations is key to creating experiences that delight you at work, everyday. We are committed to fostering an environment where every member of our Y’ello Family is heard, understood and empowered to live an inspired life.

Our values keep us grounded and moving in the right direction. Most importantly, they keep us honest. It is not something we claim to be. It is in our DNA.

As an organisation, we consider it our mission to create an exciting and rewarding place to work, where our people can be themselves, thrive in positivity and ignite their full potential. A workplace that boosts creativity and innovation, improves productivity, and ultimately drives meaningful results. A workplace that is built on relationships and achieving a purpose that is bigger than us. This is what we want you to experience with us!

Our commitments go beyond an organisational promise. It is in our leadership and managerial ethos to meaningfully partner with our employees, customers and stakeholders with a vision to realise our shared goals.

We are delighted that you are considering us as your career partner to make a mark in the world. We look forward to your application!