Market Engagement Manager, Handset Affordability

Location: London or or Nairobi

Position type: Fixed Term Contract until Dec 2027

What the hiring manager says

"This role offers an exciting opportunity to drive strategic interventions focused on improving the affordability of internet-enabled devices in low-and middle-income countries. As a Market Engagement Manager, you’ll collaborate closely with mobile operators to shape and refine their handset affordability strategies, driving digital inclusion for underserved populations, particularly women. The role requires a blend of commercial acumen and a passion for digital inclusion. You’ll help create scalable and impactful solutions that can drive long-term change for women and underserved populations."

Kim Viljoen, Market Engagement Director

About the Team

GSMA Mobile for Development (M4D) is a global team within the GSMA, which brings together our mobile operator members, tech innovators, the development community and governments, to realise the impact of mobile in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/

This role sits within the GSMA’s Connected Women and Connected Society programmes. GSMA’s Connected Women programme works with mobile operators and their partners to address the barriers to women accessing and using mobile internet and mobile money services. For more information, please visit the GSMA Connected Women website at: www.gsma.com/connectedwomen.  

The GSMA’s Connected Society Programme works with the mobile industry and key stakeholders to increase access to and adoption of the mobile internet, focusing on underserved population groups in developing markets. For more information, please visit the GSMA Connected Society website at: www.gsma.com/connectedsociety

About the Role

As the Market Engagement Manager, you will collaborate with mobile operators and their partners across Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific to drive initiatives aimed improving the affordability and ownership of internet-enabled handsets for women, empowering them to meet their needs and support their livelihoods.

You will engage with operators and others in the mobile eco-system to shape their strategies and approaches to handset affordability, helping to build scalable and impactful solutions for underserved populations, particularly women. Your work will build on the existing efforts of the Digital Inclusion team and ensure that operators are supported in addressing the device affordability barrier.

Key roles and responsibilities include the following:

• Drive handset affordability initiatives with the telecom industry: Engage with mobile operators and key stakeholders to develop and advance strategies that improve device affordability for underserved populations (including device financing), with a particular focus on women. Provide direct support through strategic workshops and technical assistance, ensuring timely, high-quality execution and tracking impact to refine and scale initiatives in alignment with digital inclusion goals. Facilitate partnerships for enhanced impact where relevant.
• Secure operator commitment for technical assistance and research projects: Engage mobile operators to secure their commitment to participate in technical assistance projects, such as qualitative research, design sprints, and program evaluations. Support operators in optimizing their handset affordability interventions through tailored insights and guidance.
• Monitor trends and impact measurement: Stay informed about trends in digital inclusion and handset affordability, particularly in LMICs and for women. Help to measure and evaluate the impact of affordability initiatives and use data-driven insights to guide further efforts and improve outcomes.
• Collaborate with the insights team: Work closely with the insights team to shape thought leadership on handset affordability and deliver data-driven strategic advisory for operators and other stakeholders. Help translate insights from operator engagements into actionable recommendations, contributing to industry best practices and publications.
• Share insights across the ecosystem: Collaborate with the insights team to document and share findings from operator engagements, disseminating key learnings and actionable insights to the wider mobile and development ecosystem.

About You

The right candidate will bring experience and understanding of how to drive digital inclusion or underserved populations in low-and middle-income countries at scale. This includes having both strong commercial experience and an understanding of approaches to increasing handset affordability with a gender lens. You will be excited to join a diverse team that shares a passion for the ways mobile technology can empower underserved populations in low- and middle-income countries, especially women. 

You must have the right to work in the UK.

Capabilities

• Commercial expertise: Commercial experience, with a strong understanding of the telecom sector and mobile for development initiatives. Experience in strategy, consulting, or telecom business is highly desirable.
• Expertise in handset affordability and barriers to access: Knowledge and understanding of approaches to improving handset affordability and/or consumer credit, with a strong understanding of the broader challenges facing underserved populations in LMICs—particularly women—in accessing and using mobile phones. Knowledge of holistic approaches that address additional barriers such as digital skills, safety and security, relevance, and access is highly desirable.
• Strategic and analytical skills: Proven ability to develop and implement actionable strategies with measurable impact, particularly in the mobile sector. Skilled in recognizing commercially viable approaches that drive social impact and able to adjust tactics to keep operator partners aligned with project goals.
• Experience in LMICs with underserved populations, ideally with a focus on women: Experience working with underserved communities in LMICs, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa or Asia-Pacific. Background in mobile for development or development contexts is a plus.
• Exceptional communication and advocacy skills: Strong written and verbal communication skills with an emphasis on influencing and persuading stakeholders. Capable of communicating complex ideas clearly and convincingly to diverse audiences to maintain commitment and focus from operator partners.
• Tenacious relationship-building and influence: Demonstrated ability to build and sustain strong relationships with key stakeholders, especially with mobile operators who may have competing priorities. Able to effectively engage and influence operators both virtually and in-person, maintaining momentum and alignment on key initiatives.
• Global perspective and cultural sensitivity: Ability to work effectively in a global, cross-cultural environment, with strong collaboration skills across diverse teams.
• Project management and execution: Strong project management skills with the ability to work independently. Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects, including workshops, events, meetings with various partners and stakeholders. A proactive, solutions-oriented mindset is essential for driving impactful initiatives.

Contract type

Worker type

What We Offer

Working at the GSMA offers you unparalleled access to the mobile industry. We offer a chance to truly shape the direction of mobile, whatever your role. By joining the GSMA, you will be exposed to a fast-paced rapidly evolving environment, working on global solutions, genuinely fascinating and industry-changing projects and a stimulating and dynamic environment designed to enable you to flourish.

In addition to architect-designed offices and competitive compensation, our benefits include fantastic learning & development opportunities, generous holiday allowances, four additional days off for professional development and many others.

To learn more about the GSMA, visit our career site, our LinkedIn page and our Twitter page.

Being You at the GSMA

We care deeply about diversity, equity and inclusivity and aspire to be the best at it. Your well-being and work/life balance is important, so flexi-time and remote working is available to all staff. We're keen to ensure everyone is equal, represented and connected so we particularly encourage applications from all demographics. The sucess of the GSMA year on year will continue to be contributed by people from all walks of life.

GSMA Values

Our values not only drive our culture – they shape how we work and interact inside and outside our global organisation.

Passionately driven

We approach everything we do with unparalleled capability, tenacity and commitment, knowing that the challenging scale, pace and complexity of our work is what leads to its world-changing impact.

Insightful leaders

We continually develop and engage our expertise, insight and creativity so that we’re always ready to respond to the changing landscape with authority, agility and nuance.

Stronger together

We lean on each other so the industry can lean on us, embracing our diversity by actively seeking out perspectives and skill sets beyond our own, fuelling each other’s successes and constantly asking how we can help.

Underpinning our values is our collective mindset to show up purposefully as good human beings every day, in every situation. When we’re at our best – we are collaborative, considerate and compassionate to others, and we create a safe space for one another to thrive, assuming positive intent in our colleagues. And if we aren’t at our best and the pressure is on – we feel free to be ourselves but still remain curious, lean into the tough stuff and we are always respectful to others and accountable for the part we play.