Head Of Technology (Nairobi)

The company opened its first manufacturing facility in Mombasa, Kenya, in 1962, rapidly widening its reach to include further countries in East Africa, and then Southern Africa. In 2003, all operating companies were reversed into the current holding company called Safal Investments Mauritius Limited and conduct its business across Africa as the Safal Grou…

Head Of Technology (Nairobi)

Job Purpose

• Lead the organisation’s technology and digital agenda to improve manufacturing performance, business efficiency, resilience, and growth. The role owns enterprise technology strategy, digital transformation, cybersecurity, data and analytics, enterprise applications, infrastructure, and the integration of IT and operational technology across manufacturing sites. The role carries clear bottom-line accountability: it owns the economic return on the Group’s technology investment and is measured on a verified, sustained contribution to EBITDA, cost competitiveness, working capital and return on capital.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Economic value and bottom-line accountability: Own the technology P&L, Opex and capex budgets in full. Commit to, and deliver, a defined annual EBITDA contribution from technology through cost reduction, productivity, margin improvement and revenue enablement. Jointly own benefit delivery with business leaders, with benefits validated by Finance and tracked through to the P&L, not reported as activity or project completion.

• Technology strategy and governance: Develop and execute the technology roadmap; establish architecture, standards, policies, investment priorities and governance across the organisation, with every investment anchored to a quantified business case.

• Digital and manufacturing transformation: Lead automation, smart factory and Industry 4.0 initiatives; connect factory-floor and enterprise systems to deliver measurable gains in OEE, yield, uptime, energy efficiency and conversion cost per unit.

• Enterprise applications and integration: Own and optimise ERP, MES, CRM, HRIS, supply chain, finance and related platforms; simplify the application landscape and strengthen integration and user adoption.

• Data, analytics and AI:  Establish sound data governance and a single source of truth; deliver dashboards, advanced analytics and practical AI use cases that improve margin, pricing, inventory and working capital decisions.

• Cybersecurity and resilience: Protect information and operational technology assets; oversee cyber risk, privacy, business continuity, disaster recovery and security awareness; express cyber and technology risk in financial terms to inform risk appetite and investment.

• Infrastructure and service delivery: Ensure secure, reliable and cost-effective networks, cloud, workplace technology and support services across all locations, while driving down unit cost of service and total cost of ownership.