Vacancy title:
Director of People, Learning, and Innovation

Jobs at:
Inkomoko Business Development

Deadline of this Job:
1st October 2018

Duty Station:
Kigali, Rwanda

Summary
Date Posted: 14th September 2018 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed , Employment Type: Full-Time

African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) is a network of incubators, accelerators, and investment funds supporting young entrepreneurs in Africa. AEC’s goal is to support African entrepreneurs to create jobs by providing them with skills, networks, and access to finance needed to grow their enterprises. Since launching AEC in 2012, AEC has several brands under its management, and its signature program, Inkomoko Business Development, works with entrepreneurs in Rwanda to provide them growth planning, technology tools, accounting, and financial support, including direct affordable debt investment. African Entrepreneur Collective has worked with more than 3,300 entrepreneurs across East Africa, ranging from refugee entrepreneurs to tourism businesses to agriculture exporters. All of these entrepreneurs are contributing to job growth and economic development across Africa. AEC is the mission-driven organization that seeks both social impact and financial sustainability.

JOB DETAILS:

Director of People, Learning, and Innovation
Kigali, Rwanda

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) is a network of incubators, accelerators, and investment funds supporting young entrepreneurs in Africa. AEC’s goal is to support African entrepreneurs to create jobs by providing them with skills, networks, and access to finance needed to grow their enterprises. Since launching AEC in 2012, AEC has several brands under its management, and its signature program, Inkomoko Business Development, works with entrepreneurs in Rwanda to provide them growth planning, technology tools, accounting, and financial support, including direct affordable debt investment. African Entrepreneur Collective has worked with more than 3,300 entrepreneurs across East Africa, ranging from refugee entrepreneurs to tourism businesses to agriculture exporters. All of these entrepreneurs are contributing to job growth and economic development across Africa. AEC is the mission-driven organization that seeks both social impact and financial sustainability.

ABOUT THE ROLE
The Director of People, Learning, and Innovation is a new position that will report directly to the Co-Founders/Executives of the organization for a highly strategic role operating across AEC’s multiple East African locations. Conceptually, this new Director will manage the M&E team to develop new programmatic and client insights, incorporate those into our market-based offerings as new product development, and then work with senior directors to hire or develop the team of staff who are best suited to implement for maximum achievement of our vision, while maintaining organizational culture. This is no small task, and we see an ambitious leader to join us.

Specific responsibilities include:
Org Development & HR (40% time)

• Develop and maintain a strategic understanding of talent needs across the organization, including staying ahead of future growth
• Support Directors to hire rockstars or diamonds-in-the-rough to meet our business deliverables, aligning new hires’ talents to complement the strengths/challenges of existing staff
• Manage HR Officer for admin/compliance
• Lead AEC’s annual employee review and goal setting process, helping managers to review their teams’ progress and professional development needs
• Work with CEO to maintain org culture and export it across locales, so when you walk into any AEC office worldwide, we’re aligned to the same spirit and vision
• On the organization’s employee manual, ensuring that policies reflect strategy and culture
• Develop systems of sustainability for human resources – succession planning, annual happiness audit, mid-level managers growth strategy, etc.
• Improve and monitor systems of on-boarding
• Advise on salary bands, compensation levels, and non-monetary bonuses to help staff retain motivation to outcomes
• Lead the annual staff retreat, in partnership with other AEC Directors
• Maintain relationships with the employment lawyer, and work on any issues of staff legal matters, along with the Director of Finance & Admin
• Serve as organizational Ombudsperson, and manage anonymous feedback

Product Innovation (40% time)

• Innovate/iterate on existing products (training, assessment, consulting, technology tools) for cost/time efficiency and impact
• Develop new products to meet client needs or market opportunities
• Incorporate learnings from M&E and other data for continual improvement
• Modify products to meet the needs of various businesses – micro, SME, export-focused, agriculture, tourism & hospitality business, etc.
• Change management within the organization as we roll out new products and train staff to implement them
• Maintain awareness of the competitive landscape and how our products fit into the ecosystem

Learning (20% time)

• Manage a growing team of M&E staff to develop insight into the impact of our program, identifying successes and challenges
• In partnership with the M&E lead, identify research questions to answer on our products, their positions in the market, and how we need to modify in the new location
• Ensure connection between the Micro Business Department and the SME Growth Department to ensure that both of these client services teams can share best practices and learnings
• Run monthly Learning Groups across departments to ensure all staff can continuously grow

CANDIDATE QUALIFICATIONS
The Director of People, Learning & Innovation will be a seasoned leader who understands how complex systems and roles fit together, and play out in the context of the African social enterprise market. Be indispensable for the organization’s future strategy.
Successful candidates will demonstrate:

• Proven track record of leadership, including significant roles in team development and growth
• Love of working in Rwanda or other emerging African economies with deep respect and nuanced understanding of racial and economic justice
• Experience with product development – through the lens of human-centered design – and a willingness to test, fail, iterate, and test again, incorporating data, not your own biases
• Experience with small and medium enterprises or entrepreneurship desired, but other transferable industries are acceptable
• Creative researcher’s mindset and tenacious problem solver
• Ability to care about your colleagues and challenge them simultaneously
• Strong experience in project management and budgeting and managing to outcomes
• Unrelenting perseverance, personal integrity, and critical thinking skills
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize tasks and manage multiple deadlines – must be both strategic and operational
• Ability to work with high-profile individuals by demonstrating high levels of discretion, professionalism, and responsiveness
• Fluent in English, additional proficiency in French and Kinyarwanda strongly preferred
• Passionate commitment to the mission and objectives of AE
• 8+ years of work experience in the relevant or applicable field
• MBA or equivalent preferred

All of our staff embody our organizational culture. Both individually and collectively, we add value towards these ends:

PURPOSE

• All the problems on the continent already have the solution that exists on the continent
• We are a global leader, providing practical tools and services so that our clients can grow their businesses and create jobs.

ACHIEVEMENT

• We push ourselves to reach beyond what we think is possible.
• We are committed to providing high quality, practical business development services and will iterate processes, programs, and location to stay relevant and impactful.

IMPROVEMENT

• We are committed to continuous learning and growing
• We learn from our successes and our failures. We solicit expert advice and value different knowledge.

BRAVERY

• The brave rise together.
• We stand up for our people and we hold ourselves and our colleagues to high expectations.

TURIKUMWE

• We cherish goat parties.
• We take time to appreciate each other. We celebrate success together; we hold each other up in hard times.

INTEGRITY

• We do the hard things thoughtfully.
• We are not afraid to do what’s in AEC’s best interest