Legal Manager at MFS Africa

The Role

We seek a seasoned, senior legal professional to join the Legal, Regulatory & Governmental Affairs Group. The purpose of this role will be to provide legal and regulatory advice and guidance across the Group and supports the Group’s activities across Africa. The duties and responsibilities captured within this role are sub-divided into two categories, as follows:

Legal Advisory & Support

• Providing legal support to Commercial Team through the drafting and reviewing of Contracts, negotiating of commercial terms and legal execution of commercial relationships.
• Serving as legal advisor to support internal stakeholders such as IT, commercial, treasury, compliance and other support departments.
• Identifying legal and regulatory risks in transactions, contracts and other activities conducted by the Group.
• Drafting, reviewing and interpreting legal and compliance policies and procedures and ensuring that contracts are in compliance with internal policies.
• Supporting the development of best-in-class standardised legal documentation templates and group-wide governance structures for maintaining and updating legal templates; serving as owner of all English legal templates/documents.
• Managing contract lifecycles and arranging for re-negotiation of terms where necessary.
• Conducting periodic reviews of existing legal documentation to ensure they remain relevant, applicable, and updated.
• Maintaining and updating contract repository.
• Managing IP and IP registrations.
• Handling of contractual disputes.
• Providing transaction specific and ad-hoc legal research and advice to ongoing projects.

Regulatory & Governmental Support

• Providing guidance and oversight to the entire Group on regulatory matters.
• Monitoring and responding to regulatory developments across Africa and advising on the impact, if any, on MFS Africa and its business strategy.
• Engaging with and managing regulators in relevant African markets.
• Supporting the Group’s efforts in acquiring new licenses and/or expansion of existing licenses.
• Supporting the Director, Legal & Regulatory Affairs and Group Company Secretary in managing engagement and relationships with key governmental entities.
• Working closely with the Compliance department to help build the regulatory compliance function across the Group.
• Playing a key role in ensuring MFS Africa’s compliance with the laws and regulations of each country in which we operate, by conducting frequent regulatory horizon scanning and advising on changes in law and regulation and how these might impact the organisation and its businesses.

Requirements
Skills and Competencies

• Superior verbal and written communication skills in English – able to articulate one’s views in a clear and concise manner.
• Excellent listening skills, analytical and problem-solving aptitude.
• Creative and critical thinker; comfortable challenging the status quo and proposing innovative, constructive solutions to address business challenges.
• Effectively manage relationships with multiple stakeholders (internal and external) at various levels of seniority; can operate at both a strategic and tactical level.
• Comfortable working in a diverse, collaborative environment involving different stakeholders and subject matter experts.
• Passionate about consistency, quality, and integrity in governance, legal and regulatory risk management.
• High propensity towards execution, even under a high degree of pressure.
• Able to work autonomously in a highly demanding and often ambiguous environment.
• Collaborative working style, with the ability to identify and organize resources required to deliver on projects.

Qualifications and Experience

• Qualified lawyer or holder of Degree of Master of Laws in a relevant jurisdiction, with working experience within the professional services or finance sector, or at a law firm.
• 5+ years’ experience in FinTech, consumer/digital financial services, and/or regulatory engagement.
• Deep, demonstrable, practical knowledge of driving, interpreting, and applying regulation in the context of consumer financial services.
• Pan-African exposure, experience, excitement, and expertise will be invaluable.
• Understanding of market and industry developments within the broader financial services sector that relate to legal and regulatory risks in Africa.
• Benefits
• We are highly innovative and were ranked by Fast Company as one of the most innovative companies in the world.
• We work at the very cutting edge of fintech in Africa.
• We solve relevant problems for Africa and the world and are building the MFS Africa Hub into a payment infrastructure designed to transcend generations.
• We have a very diverse work environment with over 20+ nationalities represented and continually strive to build a culture of caring and execution.