About the position
Our client is a tech start-up making life better for everyday households in Africa, and is looking for a Senior Regulatory, Legal & Compliance Manager to join their team at their offices in Cape Town, South Africa.
Role Overview:
As a Senior Regulatory, Legal & Compliance Manager, you will unblock the growth of our Smartphones business by proactively identifying, coordinating, and resolving the most complex regulatory, legal, and compliance obstacles across our priority markets (initially Malawi, Rwanda, and Zambia, with potential to extend to Uganda, Nigeria, and new-market assessments).
You will:
- Own the regulatory, legal & compliance picture: Independently coordinate and drive complex matters with limited senior oversight, maintaining reliable visibility over licences, filings, obligations, disputes, and deadlines across scope.
- Coordinate specialists on cross-functional matters: Bring together internal teams (Finance, Credit, product, commercial) and external advisers on issues spanning legal, regulatory, compliance, tax, credit, and accounting, and drive integrated, decision-ready recommendations and implementation plans. Technical ownership stays with the relevant function or specialist.
- Build systems & standards: Create repeatable templates and processes for regulatory correspondence, adviser briefs, risk assessments, escalation, and new-market reviews; embed proactive legal and regulatory input into product, pricing, credit, collections, and partnership decisions.
- Oversee the compliance programme: Ensure material areas—AML/KYC, sanctions, anti-bribery & corruption, data protection & privacy, cybersecurity, conflicts, complaints & remediation, and third-party/outsourcing risk—each have a clear owner, framework, and escalation path (you are not expected to be the technical expert in every area).
- Lead expansion readiness & report to leadership: Lead structured regulatory, legal, and compliance readiness assessments for up to three potential 2027 markets, and report clearly to leadership and the board on the status, significance, and recommended response to material risks.
Basic Requirements:
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Law, Compliance, Finance, Accounting, Business, or a related discipline. Legal admission or a compliance qualification is strongly preferred; a CA, ACCA, or CIMA qualification is relevant where accompanied by meaningful legal, regulatory, or compliance experience. Exceptional relevant experience may compensate for the absence of a formal qualification.
- Core technical strength: Deep expertise in at least one of legal, regulatory, or compliance work, with strong working knowledge across the other two. Proven experience with regulated businesses (licensing, filings, compliance Senior Regulatory, Legal & Compliance Manager – Smartphones 3 monitoring, disputes, contracts, and regulator engagement) and briefing, managing, and challenging external advisers.
- Commercial literacy: Strong grasp of business models, pricing, unit economics, and the financial implications of regulatory decisions. Familiarity with IFRS 9, cross-border tax, treasury, or financial modelling is useful but not required.
- Experience: 5+ years of relevant experience in legal, regulatory, compliance, or related advisory work, with meaningful exposure to regulated financial services, lending, or fintech, and to multiple jurisdictions or emerging markets. Evidence of personally coordinating or resolving complex, high-stakes matters. African market experience is strongly advantageous.
About the company:
Our client is a rapidly growing scale-up dedicated to improving the lives of everyday households across Africa by providing access to solar energy and the internet. They provide financing, builds technology, and operates a distribution network that enables hundreds of people every day to buy solar panels and smartphones.
Their solar business operates across 4 countries—Malawi, Madagascar, Nigeria, and the DRC—and has provided more than half a million families access to small home solar systems over the last 5 years. They employ 100s of agents who visit local villages, field credit applications using custom-built technology, and deliver and set up the solar systems.
Their smartphone business operates in Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda, and Zambia. In these countries, they partner with hundreds of phone retailers—including some of the biggest telecom companies like MTN—to allow customers to purchase smartphones on credit and pay for them over time.
Working in this team is about creating trust in markets where trust is often the lowest and providing life-changing value to people who need it most.
Why work for them:
Senior Regulatory, Legal & Compliance Manager – Smartphones. They offer the stability of a large company with the culture of a tight-knit startup. While Yellow employs more than 1,000 people across the continent, the core management team in Cape Town, South Africa is an agile, talented group of less than 30. No matter your age or level of experience, you'll be given large responsibilities from Day 1 and expected to be a self-starter and self-teacher. While expectations are high, so is the level of support: we foster a culture where colleagues from across the business are eager to support and learn from one another.
Additional benefits:
- Great offices at the V&A Waterfront
- Opportunity to participate in our ESOP within your first year
- Exciting travel to the countries we operate in
- Hybrid flexibility: spend at least half your time at office, you decide when
- Annual team retreats
- Flexible paid time off
- Free parking
General:
- We are committed to fair and inclusive hiring. All suitably qualified applicants are welcome to apply.
- Preference may be given in line with our client’s Employment Equity plan and applicable legislation.
- Applicants must have the legal right to work in South Africa at the time of application.
- Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. If you do not hear from us within 30 days, please consider your application unsuccessful.
- Please include your current remuneration (CTC), salary expectation, and notice period (optional but helpful for screening).
- By applying, you consent to the processing of your personal information for recruitment purposes in accordance with POPIA.
Desired Skills:
- Assessment
- Compliance
- Drafting
- Legal
- Management
- Regulatory Filings
- Know Your Customer (KYC)
