Head of Procurement at Inkomoko in Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

ABOUT INKOMOKO

Inkomoko supports entrepreneurs to grow their businesses in order to improve livelihoods, create jobs, and help communities thrive.

In 2025, Inkomoko was listed by the Financial Times as the 8th fastest-growing company in Africa, supporting entrepreneurs across East and Central Africa to grow thriving businesses and build inclusive, resilient economies.

Founded in 2012, Inkomoko has worked with more than 100,000 entrepreneurs, including thousands of refugee entrepreneurs. Inkomoko provides a combination of training, consulting, access to finance, and market-level systems change. We are the largest investor to refugee entrepreneurs in Africa.

Inkomoko has 800+ staff in 50 offices across Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Sudan. Through Inkomoko’s 2030 strategic plan, we are adding 3 additional countries to serve more than 550,000 entrepreneurs and growing our $30M loan fund to impact 7M lives.

INKOMOKO VALUES

All staff at Inkomoko are connected to a shared set of organizational values:

• Purpose: be solutions-oriented, produce high-quality work, and be a global leader.
• Achievement: push yourself to reach beyond what you previously thought possible.
• Improvement: be humble, engage in continuous growth through open & accurate feedback
• Bravery: willing to take risks, create a safe space for others, be compassionate, and inclusive.
• We Eat Goat: we celebrate success and support each other in hard times. We do this work together in the spirit of turikumwe, tuko pamoja, abren nen, Kula na sawa, On est ensemble.

Inkomoko is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Refugees, women, and persons who reflect the diverse communities we serve are strongly encouraged to apply.

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Head of Procurement will lead the organization's procurement function across all countries of operation, transforming procurement into a strategic business partner that enables growth while ensuring compliance, value for money, and operational excellence.

This role is responsible for developing procurement strategies, strengthening governance, improving supplier performance, reducing purchasing cycle times, and building procurement capability across a rapidly expanding regional organization.

The Head of Procurement also has the unique opportunity to build the procurement function into a catalyst for economic growth in the communities in which we serve through embedding our social procurement goals into our procurement and sourcing strategies. .

The successful candidate will combine strategic thinking with strong operational execution and be passionate about creating systems that help our procurement and operations teams think strategically while maintaining strong internal controls.

Specifically, the Head of Procurement will be responsible for:

Procurement Strategy & Leadership

• Develop and execute Inkomoko's regional procurement strategy across all countries of operation.
• Lead the evolution of procurement from a transactional function to a strategic business partner for the organization.
• Create procurement roadmaps that support country leadership as they expand into new countries and new locations
• Working closely with operations and finance, establish annual procurement priorities and performance targets.
• Lead and develop a high-performing regional procurement team that can keep pace with organizational demands and growth.
• Own the conversion of the approved annual budget into a costed, time-phased regional procurement plan
• Set and deliver annual savings and value-for-money targets for the procurement function, evidencing realised savings against plan for use in re-forecasting and in the following year’s budget.

Procurement Operations

• Oversee end-to-end procurement for regional initiatives and priorities.

• Ensure procurement processes at the country and regional level are efficient, transparent, and compliant.

• Reduce procurement lead times while maintaining strong controls. Maintain a strong working relationship with our Internal Audit team.

• Work with the regional and country procurement teams to standardize procurement practices across countries.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives at the regional level that can cascade to country teams.

• Enforce budget discipline at the front of the procure-to-pay cycle; ensure teams are delivering a clean handover to the Finance team for payment with complete files.

Supplier & Contract Management

• Build and maintain a high-quality regional supplier network that emphasizes engaging suppliers from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.
• Develop strategic supplier relationships to advance our regional priorities.
• Lead supplier sourcing, evaluation, negotiation, and onboarding for the regional team.
• Monitor supplier performance by developing KPIs and vendor scorecards.
• Collaborate with Legal to ensure appropriate contract management and renewal processes. Guide country teams on vendor management and annual vendor contract renewal.
• Own a regional vendor contract and commitment register and give the organization forward visibility of committed spend for cash planning and multi-year commitments.

Governance, Risk & Compliance

• Ensure compliance with the organizational procurement policy, donor requirements, and applicable local regulations.
• Strengthen procurement controls to reduce operational and compliance risks.
• Lead procurement audits and implement corrective actions.
• Promote ethical procurement practices and conflict-of-interest management.
• Maintain procurement documentation to the highest standards.

Strategic & Ethical Sourcing

• Lead competitive sourcing initiatives for high-value and strategic purchases.
• Embed our “social procurement” targets to purchase from the communities in which we serve into our sourcing strategies, focusing on buying from women, refugee, and youth owned businesses.
• Identify opportunities for regional purchasing and supplier agreements for better economies of scale.
• Provide country teams with tools to conduct market analysis and supplier benchmarking.
• Ensure country and regional teams maintain spend-category and unit-cost intelligence — top categories, price benchmarks and prevailing market rates — and make it available to inform the costing assumptions used in the annual budget

Stakeholder Partnership

• Partner with country leadership, finance, Digital Transformation (IT), People & Culture (HR), and program teams to understand high priority procurement needs.
• Advise senior management and country leadership on procurement planning and sourcing strategies.
• Improve procurement planning through stronger collaboration with departments.
• Engage budget holders during the annual budget cycle to test and sharpen procurement assumptions - unit costs, quantities, lead times and phasing

Systems & Data

• Lead implementation and optimization of procurement technology and digital workflows.
• Work with our MERL and data team to develop procurement dashboards and reporting.
• Lead the integration of the procurement module with the budget module in the ERP, so that the procure-to-pay process begins from the approved annual budget: requisitions are validated against budget availability in the system and routed for higher approval where funds are insufficient.
• Use procurement data to identify trends, bottlenecks, savings opportunities, and risks.
• Establish procurement KPIs and regularly report performance to leadership.

Team Development

• Build procurement capability across all country offices, working closely with country operations managers and officers.
• Coach and mentor the regional procurement staff. Develop professional development plans based on their capabilities.
• Deliver procurement training to managers and budget owners.
• Foster a culture of accountability, customer service, and continuous improvement.

Who we are Looking for;

• Bachelor's degree in Procurement, Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Logistics, or related fields. Master's degree preferred.
• Professional procurement certification (CIPS, CPSM, MCIPS, or equivalent) strongly preferred.
• 8–10+ years of progressive procurement experience.
• At least 5 years leading procurement teams from diverse backgrounds.
• Experience managing procurement across multiple countries.
• Experience within NGOs, development organizations, international organizations, or other donor-funded environments strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated success implementing procurement transformation initiatives.
• Experience managing high-value contracts and supplier negotiations.
• Experience supporting organizational growth and scaling operations.
• English speakers with additional language fluency in French and/or Arabic are strongly preferred.

Competencies

We are looking for someone who;

• Synthesizes Data - Leverages key information, data, and insights to enhance both client and team member experiences.
• Adapts Approach to Situations - Adjusts the team's approach to meet the shifting demands of impact; able to quickly adapt to suit the context and drive to positive outcomes for their department.
• Enhances Competitive Advantage - Creates new and better ways to drive organizational success, with a future-focused mindset (at least 2 years ahead), through innovation and leveraging external relationships and opportunities.
• Uses his/her Technical expertise to coach and guide staff to meet and exceed expectations.

WHAT YOU’LL GET

This role is inside a high-growth, mission-driven social enterprise. By joining, you’ll access:

• Competitive salary, and potential annual performance-based bonus
• Incredible company culture, with opportunities for learning and growth
• Diverse colleagues across the region, and policies that demonstrate commitment to equity and inclusion
• Ability to make a significant social impact to your community
• Health insurance for self and family
• Staff savings and provident fund, negotiated bank rates for long-term employees
• Generous annual leave, parental leave, and sabbatical options.

TO APPLY

If you’re excited about this role, please submit your CV, and tell us why you are the right fit for this opportunity.

Inkomoko is committed to justice, diversity, equity and inclusion. As we seek to reflect the communities we serve, refugees and women are strongly encouraged to apply. As a company we have policies that ensure fair treatment in the application process.

NB: Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Employment is conditional upon successful background checks and other verification as needed.

All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and background screening checks. Inkomoko also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, In line with this Scheme, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual misconduct, fraud, or abuse. By applying, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.