About this role
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.
The Portfolio Manager will be responsible for the end-to-end performance and long-term health of the digital lending portfolio by closely monitoring key indicators such as loan disbursements, outstanding balances, active borrowers, repayment rates, roll rates, non-performing loans, write-offs, and monetization, and implementing actions across these areas to ensure good portfolio quality, sustainable and responsible scaling of digital credit products.
Insights, Research and Analysis
Conduct research and analysis on emerging credit risk methodologies, data sources, and technologies, ensuring continuous enhancement of portfolio management and risk decisioning capabilities
Leverage insights generated through research and analysis to guide the evolution of credit risk management capabilities across lending and scoring platforms, including scorecards, risk features, decision engines, and underlying systems.
Synthesize insights from product performance, customer behaviour, and market trends to guide strategic decisions on scoring, pricing, exposure management, and lifecycle risk strategies.
Portfolio Planning and Management
Define and implement data-driven portfolio management and risk analytics frameworks, in collaboration with Big Data and Data Science teams, to support effective credit risk management
Provide strategic guidance on credit risk assumptions, risk appetite, and portfolio strategy, informed by product performance, solution effectiveness, and platform capabilities.
Leverage advanced analytics and big data techniques to enhance credit risk management and portfolio management practices, driving continuous improvement in underwriting, pricing, and exposure management.
Monitor cohort and vintage performance by tracking repayment behaviour, roll rates, defaults, and profitability across customer acquisition periods, enabling early assessment of portfolio quality and long-term product sustainability.
Identify early warning indicators and deterioration trends by analyzing changes in customer behaviour, repayment patterns, income signals, and transaction activity, allowing for proactive intervention before material portfolio degradation occurs.
Apply portfolio insights to optimize product design, pricing, limit strategies, and tenure structures across different stages of the product lifecycle.
Utilize advanced analytical tools and platforms (e.g. SQL, Oracle BI, Power BI) to generate actionable insights that inform portfolio performance, risk management decisions, and product optimization.
Support and execute data-driven decisions based on observed risk trends, customer behaviour, and product performance metrics.
Work closely with Data Science and Analytics teams to enhance scoring features, improve scorecard performance, and strengthen the identification and differentiation of good versus high-risk customers.
Design and map risk management and portfolio strategies to the full digital credit product lifecycle covering launch, scale-up, maturity, and optimization to proactively address expected product and portfolio challenges.
Define and continuously refine the collections and recovery strategy for the digital credit portfolio, including segmentation of delinquent accounts, treatment paths across DPD stages, and escalation frameworks aligned to portfolio risk profiles.
Monitor and assess the effectiveness of collection mechanisms—including automated collections, partner-led recoveries, and manual interventions—by tracking cure rates, roll rates, recovery ratios, and cost of collections, and implement data-driven improvements to optimize recovery outcomes and portfolio quality.
Customer and End-User Support
Work closely with customer support and operations teams to identify customer pain points, ensuring frontline teams are equipped to respond effectively to customer queries related to limits or collection mechanisms used.
Monitor customer interaction data (complaints, queries, failed repayments, escalations) to identify systemic issues impacting portfolio performance, customer experience, or repayment behaviour, and drive corrective actions.
Support the design and optimization of self-service and automated support mechanisms (e.g. SMS, USSD, app notifications, IVR), reducing operational costs while improving customer understanding and repayment outcomes.
Use customer level insights and feedback to inform improvements in product design, communication, pricing transparency, and repayment journeys.
Post Launch governance
- Establish a structured post-launch monitoring framework to track portfolio performance against approved business, risk, and monetization objectives, ensuring early identification of deviations.
Conduct regular portfolio health reviews covering disbursements, repayment behavior, roll rates, NPLs, recoveries, write-offs, and customer outcomes, with clearly defined escalation and remediation processes.
Oversee ongoing risk governance by monitoring adherence to approved credit policies, cut-off thresholds, limit strategies, and pricing parameters, and ensure any changes follow formal approval processes.
Implement champion–challenger governance for scorecards, pricing, and collection strategies, ensuring controlled experimentation and evidence-based decisions before scaling changes.
Review and govern the effectiveness of collection and recovery mechanisms, including automated collections, partner-led recoveries, and manual interventions, driving continuous improvement in cure and recovery rates.
Facilitate regular partner performance reviews with banks and third parties, assessing funding utilization, portfolio quality, recovery outcomes, and operational effectiveness.
Key performance indicators:
Portfolio growth and health metrics, including loan disbursements, outstanding book, active borrowers, repayment rates, roll rates, NPL ratios, write-offs, and recoveries.
Monetization and yield performance of the digital credit portfolio against approved targets.
Portfolio performance versus approved risk appetite and credit policy thresholds.
Effectiveness of credit risk, limit, pricing, and collections strategies, measured through portfolio quality and recovery outcomes.
Timely identification and mitigation of portfolio deterioration and early-warning indicators.
Successful rollout and post-launch stabilization of new digital credit products, measured by time-to-market, early portfolio performance, and governance adherence.
Execution of portfolio experiments (pricing, limits, scoring, collections) with documented outcomes and measured impact.
Improvement in customer outcomes linked to responsible borrowing, early repayment behavior, and financial literacy initiatives.
Approach both successes and failures with curiosity and resilience, systematically capturing lessons learned and applying insights to strengthen portfolio management and credit outcomes.
Actively share learnings, insights, and portfolio performance outcomes to build collective understanding and continuously elevate portfolio management capability across teams.
Rapidly learn from digital adoption, customer behavior, and portfolio performance data, using insights to drive simplicity, scalability, operational efficiency, and automation in digital credit delivery.
Collaboration & Stakeholder Management
Clearly articulate the portfolio management team’s role in delivering the digital credit strategy, ensuring priorities, resources, and capabilities are aligned to both current portfolio needs and future growth objectives.
Work closely with bank partners and internal stakeholders to drive portfolio quality, monitor the effectiveness of collection and recovery mechanisms, and jointly identify opportunities to improve collections performance and recovery outcomes.
Foster strong cross-functional collaboration across product, risk, data, technology, operations, and partner teams to break silos and ensure end-to-end ownership of portfolio performance.
Hold the team accountable for outcomes by promoting shared responsibility, disciplined execution, and data-driven decision-making in managing credit risk and portfolio performance.
Uphold and demonstrate the highest standards of integrity, professionalism, and ethical conduct, consistently living the organization’s purpose while managing credit portfolios responsibly.
Must have technical / professional qualifications:
At least six (5) years’ knowledge and experience in a relevant field with at least three (3) in credit risk and portfolio strategy for digital credit across different spectrums of product and product strategy life cycles.
Relevant Business/Finance or IT Undergraduate Degree or relevant field along with professional qualifications, or equivalent qualification(s) from a recognized institution of higher learning. MBA or relevant Master’s degree is an added advantage.
Ability to scope and implement new risk management techniques and improve processes and workflows by applying in-depth domain knowledge, supported by strong data analysis skills using tools such as Oracle BI, Power BI, Excel, SQL, while integrating subject-matter expertise and industry best practices in line with regulatory requirements ability to use data science and machine learning tools is an added advantage.
• Strong understanding of credit risk, portfolio and product management understanding of mobile money ecosystems is an added advantage.
Possess high professional and ethical standards.
Be a strategic thinker with an analytical mind.
Eligibility Criteria:
Must have assumed current Safaricom role for a minimum of 12 months period.
Employees must complete all assigned training courses to be considered for promotion .
Employees are strongly advised to discuss their career aspirations with their line managers when they apply for vacant jobs .
Candidates are eligible to apply for roles at the same level (possible lateral move to another functions. ) or one level higher (next higher immediate level)
Please be aware that promotions (band increments) may lead to changes in financial rewards. However, lateral moves only result in changes to job title and reporting lines.
For Regional roles, knowledge of the Region local language is essential.
How to Apply. If you feel that you are up to the challenge and possess the necessary qualification and experience, kindly proceed to create/ update your candidate profile on the recruitment portal and then Click on the apply button. Remember to attach your resume.