Credit Operations Specialist at Engie Africa

Job Purpose/Mission  

• With EEA selling the lion’s share of its products on credit to hundreds of thousands of individual customers every year, EEA’s Customer Finance function plays a key role in the success of the business.  
• The Global Customer Finance team supports all markets to manage the customer’s financial services journey and the credit cycle to deliver positive commercial outcomes and a positive customer experience.  
• Within the Credit Operations Team of Global CF, we work on the standards, systems, tools and workflows used by our call centers, field teams and back office teams to help support customer repayment. 
• The Credit Operations Specialist position is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in advancing EEA’s approach to credit management.  
• You will provide proactive, hands-on and results-oriented support to country teams (especially those in your region of assignment) to support the implementation of credit operations best practices and standards across the business.
• Along with your work within country teams, you will work in close collaboration with the Global Customer Finance team and other Global teams as needed. 

Responsibilities  

Credit Operations Excellence & Implementation Support.     

• Support country teams in translating credit operations policy and procedure into day-to-day practices and routines 
• Provide a direct line of support on development of and management against action plans and project plans for improvement and implementation of credit operations standards 
• Ensure that country teams actively track and improve compliance and overall quality of performance of credit operations standards and workflows 
• Collaborate with stakeholders to identify areas for improvement and potential for innovation in our processes, standards, tools, etc. 

Knowledge Sharing & Capacity Development Support.   

• Provide direct support on training and communication on credit operations standards, tools and best practices to country teams across multiple departments and levels of the business for countries  
• Support development and delivery of training content for MySol Academy or other credit-related training initiatives 
• Document and share best practices and insights from across our network of country operations with country and global teams 
• Support on planning for future capacity needs, including hiring and development of skills and competencies within existing teams  

Credit Operations Monitoring, Analysis & Insights.  

• Track and monitor the operational capacity, standards compliance and performance of our call center and field teams across activities like assessment, onboarding, collections, etc., especially for newly adopted standards and practices   
• Support and enable feedback loops, escalation of customer account issues and accountability across functions (i.e. with CX, Sales or Product teams at the country level).   
• Ensure that country stakeholders have access to credit operations monitoring tools and this information is used to inform decision making and action plans.   
• Where appropriate, provide country teams and Global CF with insights and recommendations coming from analysis of reports and monitoring tools to give important context, inform decisions and action plans. 

Stakeholder Management 

• Serve as a lead point of contact for countries within your region of assignment and provide exceptional relationship management and stakeholder management for your internal customers 
• Work with country and global Customer Finance departments to build and maintain a strong credit culture across EEA 
• Contribute to the overall strategy and priorities of EEA Customer Finance and country-specific strategies (in some cases, leading or guiding this process) related to Credit Operations or broader Customer Finance topics.  
• As needed, support gathering of feedback and insights from customers and customer-facing teams via surveys, focus groups, etc. to inform improvements and innovations in our strategy and approaches to credit management. 
• Provide practical input to country and global credit operations strategy & standards development 

Knowledge and skills  

Experience & Aptitudes: 

• 3 to 5 years of professional experience in a related field; work experience in Sub-Saharan Africa in the off-grid energy sector is a plus.  
• 1 to 2 years of experience in credit-related project management, credit operations, or other areas related to commercial lending and credit portfolio management is desired 
• Can-do attitude, with a knack for problem solving and tackling big challenges that require both team collaboration and individual perseverance 
• Keen analytical skills; ability to combine hard data and observations on operational realities and translate into actionable insights 
• High level of professional curiosity; high level of interest in how to make processes and systems work to their best level 
• Strong and confident communicator who is equally capable of asking for support and guidance as well as sharing feedback, information and knowledge with others 
• Detail-oriented, with an ability to help others check their work and maintain a high level of quality 
• Empathy and stamina in collaboration with a broad range of stakeholders including customers, customer-facing teams, leaders and managers across various business functions and units, and across a variety of cultural contexts 
• Familiarity with the nature of our customer base and the challenges faced by our customer-facing teams 

Qualifications: 

• Diploma or degree preferred. Degree in business, engineering, economics, finance, microfinance or a related subject is desired. 
• Certification in a relevant topic (e.g. project management; process mapping & process optimization) is a plus. 

 Language(s):  

• West African regional specialist:  English & French Required 
• Southern Africa regional specialist:  English Required; Portuguese, Swahili and Local Language Fluency a plus 

 Technology: 

• Proficiency with standard Microsoft Office software packages (especially Word, PowerPoint, Excel) 
• Experience with Tableau or other data visualization tools is a plus 
• Experience working with mobile and digital tools for call center or field operations is a plus