Senior Specialist Margin Assurance

Purpose of Job

The Senior Specialist – Margin Assurance & Group Governance plays a critical role in safeguarding and enhancing profitability across GSM and Mobile Financial Services (MFS/Mobile Money). The role is responsible for ensuring the integrity, efficiency, governance, and control of end-to-end revenue streams, operational processes, and financial ecosystems across telecom and digital financial services.

The position supports the Margin Assurance Manager in implementing robust governance frameworks, financial controls, operational assurance, and change management practices to detect, quantify, prevent revenue leakages, improve profitability, and strengthen business process governance across GSM and Mobile
 

Money operations:

A.GSM Day-to-Day Operational Tasks

1. GSM Margin Assurance Operations

• Monitor and analyze daily margin performance across GSM services including Voice, Data, SMS, VAS, and Interconnect.
• Validate tariffs, bundles, promotions, and pricing configurations for accuracy and compliance.
• Ensure proper revenue realization from usage, billing, rating, mediation, and invoice.
• Monitor usage trends and identify abnormal revenue behaviors impacting profitability.
• Perform daily reconciliation between network, mediation, billing, and financial systems.
• Identify and investigate revenue leakages, billing discrepancies, and operational anomalies.
• Support timely correction of identified GSM revenue assurance issues.

2. Revenue Leakage Detection & Reconciliation

• Perform regular reconciliations across GSM transaction flows and operational systems.
• Investigate reconciliation breaks and aged exceptions.
• Track leakage incidents and ensure corrective/preventive actions are implemented.
• Analyze root causes of operational and system-related revenue losses.
• Ensure completeness and accuracy of CDR processing and billing integrity.

3. GSM Partner and Settlement Assurance

• Validate distributor, dealer, retailer, and interconnect partner settlements.
• Review commission calculations and payout accuracy.
• Ensure proper controls across partner settlement processes.
• Support optimization of GSM channel profitability and distribution controls.

4. GSM Pricing, Tariff & Process Compliance

• Validate implementation of approved tariffs, bundles, and commercial offers.
• Ensure compliance with pricing governance and approval workflows.
• Verify pre- and post-deployment accuracy of promotions and pricing changes.
• Detect unauthorized tariff changes and configuration deviations

5. GSM Change Management & Operational Support    

• Participate in UAT for GSM products, pricing updates, network changes, and system upgrades.
• Assess operational and financial impacts of GSM-related changes.
• Ensure all operational changes comply with governance and approval procedures.
• Monitor post-implementation performance and identify any revenue leakage risks.
• Maintain audit trails and change logs for GSM revenue-impacting activities.

Financial Services / Mobile Money Group Governance

6. Mobile Money Margin Assurance & Governance    

• Monitor and analyze profitability across mobile money products and digital financial services.
• Ensure accurate revenue recognition across wallet transactions, transfers, cash-in/cash-out, merchant payments, and commissions.
• Review pricing structures, fees, commissions, and revenue-sharing models.
• Assess operational and financial impacts of new financial products and service changes.

7. Mobile Money Process Governance & Control Framework

• Design, document, and govern end-to-end Mobile Money operational processes.
• Establish and maintain standardized SOPs, controls, and governance frameworks.
• Identify process gaps, inefficiencies, and control weaknesses across Mobile Financial Services operations.
• Strengthen governance around agent management, merchant operations, settlements, and transaction monitoring.
• Drive control enhancements across Mobile Money operational workflows.

8. Commission, Settlement & Financial Control Governance

• Review agent, merchant, aggregator, and partner commission structures and payout processes.
• Review settlement controls and reconciliation frameworks across financial service ecosystems.
• Ensure financial controls are embedded within operational and settlement processes.
• Monitor sustainability and profitability of partner and ecosystem agreements.
• Strengthen governance over settlement risk management and financial exposure.

9. Enterprise Change Governance & Risk Management

• Support governance of all revenue-impacting system, pricing, operational, and process changes.
• Ensure all Mobile Money and financial service changes follow formal governance and approval frameworks.
• Conduct impact assessments covering financial, operational, compliance, and control risks.
• Ensure traceability, auditability, and documentation of all governance activities and system changes

10. Business Process Optimization & Strategic Governance
    

• Lead continuous improvement initiatives across telecom and Mobile Money business processes.
• Align operational processes with financial control and risk management frameworks.
• Collaborate with Finance, IT, Commercial, Risk, Compliance, Operations, and Technology teams to strengthen governance.
• Provide strategic insights to improve profitability, operational efficiency, and process maturity.
• Support enterprise-wide governance initiatives related to revenue assurance and operational excellence

11. Reporting, Audit & Regulatory Compliance

• Develop governance dashboards and reports covering margin performance, leakage trends, control effectiveness, and process compliance.
• Support internal and external audits across Mobile Money operations.
• Ensure compliance with internal policies, telecom regulations, and financial service governance requirements.
• Maintain comprehensive audit trails for operational processes, transactions, reconciliations, and system changes.
• Deliver management reports and actionable recommendations to leadership teams

Key Results Areas

GSM Operations

• Improved GSM margin protection and revenue realization.
• Minimized revenue leakages and reconciliation breaks.
• Accurate GSM billing, settlements, and commission processing.
• Improved operational efficiency and tariff compliance.
• Reduced operational risks from system and pricing changes.

Mobile Money & Group Governance    

• Strong governance and control frameworks across Mobile Financial Services.
• Compliant commission and settlement processes.
• Improved profitability and sustainability of Mobile Money operations.
• Enhanced process standardization, automation, and risk mitigation.
• Strong audit readiness and regulatory compliance across financial services.

Enterprise Governance Impact

• Improved cross-functional collaboration across Finance, IT, Commercial, Operations, Risk, and Mobile Money teams.
• Increased operational transparency and control maturity.
• Effective governance of revenue-impacting projects and system changes.
• Delivery of strategic insights supporting business growth and profitability.
• Strong collaboration across Finance, IT, Network, Operations, Commercial, and Mobile Money teams

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

• Value of identified and recovered revenue leakages
• Margin improvement across GSM and Mobile Money services
• Accuracy rate of commissions, settlements, and payouts
• Reduction in reconciliation breaks and unresolved exceptions
• Compliance rate with tariff, pricing, governance, and change management controls
• Number of successful system/process changes implemented without leakage incidents
• Reduction in operational and change-related control failures
• Number of process optimization and automation initiatives delivered
• Audit findings resolution rate
• SLA adherence for reconciliations and governance reviews

Qualifications, Experience and Attributes

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Economics, Telecommunications, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field.
• 3–5+ years of experience in Telecom Revenue Assurance, Mobile Money Operations, Financial Control, Audit, Governance, Business Process Management, or Change Management.
• Strong understanding of GSM revenue streams, billing systems, mediation, and Mobile Money platforms.
• Experience in reconciliation, process governance, and operational risk management.
• Experience supporting product launches, pricing updates, system upgrades, and operational transformations.