At 39, Jackline has 15 years experience working for major telcos.
Currently, she is the sub-Saharan Africa Receivables Product Head at Citi Bank in charge of 11 countries, a role she took up about two years ago.
Before joining Citi Bank, however, Jackline spent five years at Bharti Airtel, rising from a customer care representative in the call centre and retail to a team leader customer service, before being appointed a branch manager for retail and showrooms.
Her work at Airtel did not go unrecognised with the largest telco in East and Central Africa, Safaricom, coming calling in 2010.
"“I am in charge of 11 countries in sub-Sahara Africa. My role entails looking at the profitability of receivables, pay points how to make everything better for the customer.”"
At Safaricom, she joined as a team manager in the call centre before her burgeoning potential saw her promoted to product manager for mobile data, mobile money, and enterprise voice.
But Jackline’s star kept on shinning bagging another promotion as enterprise programme and projects manager for voice and data; then to product manager mobile internet and applications.
The Mukumu Girls alumnus would also be tasked with delivering mobile internet products and services for both prepay and postpaid customers, developing mobile internet products and services innovation funnel and roadmap as well as developing and executing mobile internet products and services strategies, among other achievements.
“Airtel gave me a career platform but Safaricom is what catapulted my career. At Safaricom, I changed to product management as one of pioneer product managers dealing with mobile data product enterprise and consumers to becoming a seasoned product manager.”
This was before she experienced a dynamic shift from the telecoms sector to the banking industry in May 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I am in charge of 11 countries in sub-Sahara Africa. My role entails looking at the profitability of receivables, pay points how to make everything better for the customer.”
But Jackline would not have been in the less traveled field of product management would she have stuck with a Biochemistry degree he was admitted to study at Kenyatta University.
“After two weeks of sitting in the class, I didn’t understand what was being taught. Then the interfaculty transfer window came and so I transferred to study Commerce majoring in Marketing Management.”
She would go on to have a Master of Business Administration in Strategy from the University of Nairobi.
With the mantra “work and leave everything to take care of itself”, her dream is to one day work at Citi Bank’s New York office.
COLLINS OMULO