Head of Lending
AI summary
Moniepoint Kenya is hiring a Head of Lending to own the commercial and credit strategy, full P&L, and portfolio performance of its lending business, starting with SME lending. The role sits within the Business function, reporting to the Head of Business, Kenya, and works closely with Product, Data Science, Risk, Compliance, Finance, and Growth. Candidates need at least 8 years of direct lending experience and proven ownership of a lending P&L.
- Owns full lending P&L including revenue, cost of funds, credit losses and operating costs
- Sets commercial and credit strategy, pricing and risk appetite for SME lending
- Builds and leads the commercial lending team from the ground up
- Requires at least 8 years of direct lending experience and demonstrable P&L ownership
- Based in Nairobi, Kenya, reporting to the Head of Business, Kenya
AI job guide
Use this guide to check salary signals, requirements, documents, application steps and safety before you apply.
AI salary guide
Not enough public dataNot enough public salary data is available for this exact role. Before applying, prepare to ask about gross pay, benefits, contract length, probation period, transport and any allowances.
Can you qualify for this role?
- Required8+ years of relevant experienceThe job post includes a minimum experience signal.
- PreferredPractical evidence in sales, internship, restauranteThe tags and summary point to skills connected with this role.
- RequiredAvailability to work in Not specifiedThe vacancy is associated with this location.
Documents to prepare
- Likely requiredUpdated CV
- Role specificCover letter or short employer message
- OptionalProfessional references
- VerifyID or passport only after verifying the employer
Application tips for this job
- Place your strongest Head of Lending evidence in the first half of your CV.
- In your cover letter or employer message, connect your experience to Moniepoint and the role in Not specified.
- Add concrete examples related to sales, internship, restaurante, ideally with measurable outcomes or clear responsibilities.
- Follow the instructions from Mimus Jobs Kenya; avoid sending documents to unofficial contacts or copied links.
- Confirm the deadline, interview location and employer contact before sharing personal documents.
- Prepare a polite question about pay, benefits and contract terms for later interview stages.
Source and safety check
- Mimus Jobs Kenya
- Original source link available
- Application method is clear
- Deadline not specified
- No major risk signal was detected in the captured text.
Never pay for interviews, shortlisting, medical checks, uniforms, or job placement. Confirm every application at the original source before sharing personal documents. Report suspicious listing.
Interview preparation
- What experience makes you a strong fit for this Head of Lending role in sales, internship?
- How have you handled responsibilities similar to those in this job post?
- Are you available to work in Not specified under the listed contract or schedule?
- Prepare examples with clear responsibilities, tools used and measurable outcomes.
- Review the source and research Moniepoint before the interview.
Ask what the first priorities will be in the role and how success will be measured.
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Original source description
The Head of Lending is a pure business role. You own the commercial strategy, the credit strategy, and the P&L for Moniepoint’s lending business in Kenya. You are not a product leader: Product is responsible for building the lending
Experience
and underwriting infrastructure, Data Science builds and tunes the credit models, Risk and Compliance set the risk appetite and regulatory guardrails, and Finance manages funding and capital. Your job is to decide who we lend to, on what terms, at what price, and to run that business profitably, working closely with each of these functions to get there.
You report to the Head of Business, Kenya, and you sit within the Business function: you own the commercial health of the lending product, with the added weight of a full P&L and direct accountability for portfolio performance and credit outcomes.
The mandate starts with SME lending, the segment with the best fit with Moniepoint’s existing merchant base. As the business matures, the scope may extend to other lending products, but your first job is to build a profitable, well-run SME lending business from the ground up.
Your
in lending, and lending specifically, not general banking, general commercial leadership, or a broader financial services career with lending as one part of it. You should have spent your career originating, underwriting, pricing, and managing loan portfolios, and be able to speak fluently and specifically about how a lending business actually makes or loses money.
Direct, demonstrable ownership of a lending P&L. Not a contribution to one, and not an advisory role around one. You should be able to describe the full economics of a portfolio you ran: revenue, cost of funds, credit losses, and how you managed the trade-off between growth and portfolio quality.
A track record of building or meaningfully scaling an SME (or comparable) lending book, ideally in a market with real credit risk challenges and thin credit history data, where good underwriting is a genuine differentiator rather than a solved problem.
Comfort operating cross-functionally without owning the functions around you. You will depend daily on Product, Data Science, Risk, Compliance, and Finance, and you need to be effective at shaping their work through influence and a clear commercial point of view, not through authority over their teams.
Strong quantitative and analytical ability. You should be genuinely comfortable with the unit economics of lending, portfolio performance metrics, and credit risk concepts, able to interrogate a model’s output rather than simply consume it.
Exposure to the Kenyan or East African lending market is an advantage but not a requirement. What matters most is that you have built real depth in lending somewhere, and can apply that depth with genuine curiosity to a new and different market.
Cultural Alignment
As well, we assess every candidate across eight dimensions that define how great leaders operate at Moniepoint. We look for evidence of all eight throughout the process, not just in a single conversation.
Customer Obsession: Build deep empathy for users. Solve problems intuitively, and fix root causes, not just tickets.
Craft: Master the fundamentals. Reason from first principles, make trade-offs explicit, and raise the bar on quality.
Systemisation: Turn repeating decisions into scalable mechanisms. Reduce cognitive load and raise engineering quality.
Urgency: Move with disciplined speed. Act autonomously within scope, remove friction, and escalate risks early.
Ownership: Treat the platform as your own. Take initiative across boundaries and follow through without reminders.
No Ego: Put the mission first. Share credit, welcome debate, and never protect status over team outcomes.
Candour: Surface uncomfortable truths and risks early. Intelligent failure is welcome; concealment is not.
Integrity: Stay truthful and ethically consistent. Refuse toxic behavior. Performance without integrity is unacceptable.
Qualifications
BA/BSc/HND
Required
8 years
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Responsibilities
Own the lending P&L. You are accountable for the full economics of the lending business: interest and fee revenue, cost of funds, credit losses, and operating costs. You build the budget, the forecast, and the reporting cadence that gives you and the Head of Business clear visibility into portfolio health and profitability.
Set the commercial and credit strategy. You decide which SME segments to prioritise, what loan products and terms to offer, and how to price for risk. Pricing and risk tolerance sit with you, but neither is set in isolation: risk thresholds are agreed jointly with Risk and Compliance, and any change in pricing or risk appetite is shared with Product, since it changes what customers experience, and with Growth, since it changes what a segment can expect.
Grow a portfolio with healthy unit economics. You are responsible for building the SME lending book from zero into a significant, profitable portfolio, growing disbursement volumes and revenue while keeping default rates and portfolio quality within agreed limits.
Drive distribution for lending. You define how lending reaches SME customers, whether through direct sales effort, or partner channels. You work with Growth on which segments to prioritise and how lending fits into the broader customer acquisition motion, without owning segment growth yourself.
Partner closely with Product, Data Science, Finance, Risk, and Compliance. You do not own any of these functions, but the lending business cannot run without them. You bring the commercial view to Product’s roadmap so the right features get built in the right order. You work with Data Science to define what a good underwriting decision looks like and to keep tightening it. You work with Finance on the cost and availability of lending capital. You work with Risk and Compliance to make sure the business is prudent and compliant with Kenyan lending regulation.
Build and lead the commercial lending team. You will hire and manage the people who run the lending business day to day: portfolio and relationship management, credit operations, and collections.
Build strategic partnerships. You identify and negotiate relationships with strategic partners who can extend our reach into the SME segment.
Who You Are
At least 8 years of