Technology Senior Manager

Department: Industry Services
Team: Africa
Position type: Short-term Contractor – ASAP start until 31st December 2026

What the hiring manager says

“As we drive digital transformation across Africa’s priority verticals from smart manufacturing to digital health and AI, this role is pivotal in ensuring technical readiness, operator integration, and sustainable scale. The Technology Senior Manager will support GSMA members and partners across Sub-Saharan Africa in the design, localisation, and deployment of telecom APIs, infrastructure initiatives, and technology frameworks aligned with GSMA programmes and specifications.”
Kanwulia Okafor, Director of Industry Services (Africa)

About the Team

The GSMA Sub-Saharan Africa team works to drive digital transformation as a key enabler of social and economic developments in the region. We work with other teams within the GSMA and members to develop various positions to support mobile industry developments in a reactive and proactive manner in the region. Our engagements are anchored on addressing the high usage gap and ensuring nobody is left behind in this digital movement.

We work with Policymakers, Regulators, MNOs and other stakeholders in ensuring policy decisions follow industry best practices in order to provide an enabling environment for the industry to thrive

About the Role

The Technology Senior Manager for Africa will lead the technical enablement and operator readiness components across our regional programmes. You will support partner MNOs and ecosystem stakeholders (e.g., developers, ministries, startups) to design, test, and deploy interoperable, scalable technology solutions - especially those involving telecom APIs, AI model deployment, and secure data-sharing architectures.

You will also serve as a trusted technical advisor internally (to non-technical colleagues) and externally (to operators, governments, and innovation partners). This role is central to ensuring the successful scale of initiatives like GSMA Open Gateway, African AI Language Models deployment, AI infrastructure localisation, and smart vertical enablement (e.g., health, manufacturing, fintech).

Your key responsibilities include:

• Operator Integration & Enablement: Coordinate technical deployment of Open Gateway APIs with mobile network operators across multiple markets.
• Vertical Solution Deployment: Support API and platform implementation in key sectors such as health, education, fintech, and manufacturing.
• Infrastructure Readiness: Map and assess edge/cloud/data centre requirements; advise on infrastructure needed to scale AI, IoT, or telecom-based innovations.
• Technical Ecosystem Engagement: Guide developers, startups, and ecosystem partners in onboarding and integrating GSMA-enabled technologies.
• Cross-Border Harmonisation: Provide input into efforts to align technical standards (e.g., API specs, data formats) across markets in SSA.
• Knowledge Management: Translate complex technical information into usable documentation for stakeholders across public and private sectors.

About You

• You are a systems thinker with a strong track record in technology deployments across telecommunications or digital ecosystems in Africa. You’re comfortable working with MNOs, regulators, developers, and innovation teams. You are excited by the challenge of bridging global technology standards with local market conditions.
• Solid technical experience, ideally in telecommunications, ICT, or digital infrastructure projects across Africa.
• Experience with telecom networks, APIs, developer platforms, or cloud/edge compute.
• Familiarity with GSMA’s Open Gateway or CAMARA APIs is highly desirable.
• Strong grasp of the African infrastructure landscape (data centres, spectrum, connectivity gaps).
• Experience supporting government, multilateral or corporate partners in regional tech deployments.
• Technical understanding of AI, language models or IoT (preferred but not mandatory).
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

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.