Legal Officer at M-KOPA
Location: Nairobi HQ
Position Start: ASAP
Reporting to: Director for Legal, Administration and External Affairs
Overall Purpose: Provide
legal and administrative support to Director for Legal, Administration
and External Affairs covering all aspects of legal work including, but
not limited to, Contracts, Terms of Business Agreements, Litigation work
and general legal advice.
legal and administrative support to Director for Legal, Administration
and External Affairs covering all aspects of legal work including, but
not limited to, Contracts, Terms of Business Agreements, Litigation work
and general legal advice.
About M-KOPA Solar: M-KOPA Solar, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, is the global leader of “pay-as-you-go” energy for off-grid customers.
Since its commercial launch in October 2012, M-KOPA has connected more than 150,000 homes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to solar power, and is now adding over 500 new homes each day.
The success of M-KOPA (M= mobile, KOPA= to borrow) stems from making solar products affordable to low-income households on a pay-per-use installment plan.
Customers acquire solar systems for a small deposit and then purchase daily usage “credits” for K.Shs. 40, or less than the price of traditional kerosene lighting. After one year of payments customers own their solar systems outright and can upgrade to more power.
All revenues are collected in real-time via mobile money systems (such as M-PESA in Kenya) and embedded GSM sensors in each solar system allow M-KOPA to monitor real time performance and regulate usage based upon payments.
This connected design means that M-KOPA is processing vast amounts of data (i.e. over 10,000 mobile payments per day) via the company’s proprietary cloud platform, M-KOPAnet.
As of January 2015 M-KOPA employs over 500 full time staff across East Africa and sells through a network of 1,000 direct sales agents. It has also commenced licensing its technology to partners in other markets.
M-KOPA has been recognised for its pioneering business mode and scale, notably winning the 2015 Zayed Future Energy Prize, being selected as the top New Energy Pioneer at the 2014 Bloomberg New Energy Finance awards and earning the 2013 FT/IFC Excellence in Sustainable Finance Award.
Role Profile
Role Profile
Key Accountabilities
- Assisting in creating and amending contracts
- Undertaking legal research using on-line resources
- Maintaining the register of signed contracts including making scanned copies of signed contracts
- Preparing final versions of contracts for signature
- Preparation and Review of Contracts
- Facilitate the execution of legal documentation
- Provide general assistance to other internal business clients with legal related queries
- Liaising with internal clients in a timely, professional and courteous manner
- Dealing with all usual aspects of legal office administration and file management
- Liaising with external legal counsel providing legal services to the Company
- Ensuring compliance with statutory and other legal requirements
- Monitoring of litigation by or against the Company
- Provide advice on intellectual property matters
- Provide other general legal advice as required
Incumbent Requirements
Education: Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) Degree from a reputable University
Professional: Current practicing certificate
Experience: 3 – 5 years’ experience of working within a commercial legal environment
Knowledge / Skills:
- A good standard of written and spoken English
- Good MS Word skills including ability to mark-up docs using Tracked Changes, use Compare and Merge to check differences between two versions of a document and formatting of documents.
- Exposure to Intellectual Property Law is essential
- Excellent legal research skills – familiar with using legal resources
- Dynamic and driven individual with initiative and a ‘can-do’ attitude
- Excellent organizational skills
- Ability to prioritize to work to deadlines
- Excellent attention to detail
- Effective oral and written communication skills
- Ability to work well under pressure and time constraints
- Self-driven and able to work with minimum supervision
Beneficial
- Experience working for an In-House legal team
- Exposure in a Commercial Department of a busy law firm
Remuneration: Competitive covering a monthly salary, performance bonus and medical benefits reflective of the candidate’s experience and skills.
How to Apply
To apply, send an updated detailed copy of your CV and a cover letter expressing why you feel you would be an excellent candidate for the role to careers@m-kopa.com with the subject EV-ILO-2046.
Deadline for applications Midnight on Sunday 8th November, 2015.
Please Note: Due to the large number of applications received by us, we regret that you will not be contacted unless you are short listed for the post and invited for an interview.
Therefore, if you have not heard from M-KOPA within 4 weeks of the date of the deadline your application, you should assume that you have not been successful on this occasion.
This measure has been taken in the interests of efficiency and cost effectiveness and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
