CAMFED has announced an exciting opportunity, the company is a multi-award winning, international non-profit organization working in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to support girls to access education and thrive in school and to enable young women to build livelihoods and lead change. Since our foundation in 1993 we have supported over 4.8 million children to go to school and the 178,000 members of the CAMFED Association – young women educated with CAMFED’s support – are at the forefront of our work.
Enterprise Development is a priority at CAMFED both because of the benefits it unlocks for young women themselves, their communities through new jobs, and for the role that women entrepreneurs – members of our CAMFED Association alumnae network– are playing as philanthropists to financially support more girls to go to school. As their business incomes rise, so does the ‘multiplier effect’ of CAMFED’s work.
This is a job for an experienced, motivated and proactive individual who can play a leading role in CAMFED’s enterprise development at a time of exceptional growth in reach and ambition. The role is broad in its scope but with a particular focus on business financing, market access and new digital opportunities for rural-based micro-enterprises; three areas in which the right candidate will have extensive prior experience.
The right candidate will be genuinely passionate about supporting young women to succeed and understand how to enable young women to navigate and overcome barriers to business success in rural Africa. They will have an extensive network of enterprise connections and be skilled at building strategic partnerships and convening multi-sectoral collaborations to help grow youth livelihoods. Ideally they will have experience in building business development opportunities across agricultural value chains and an awareness of climate-smart / green economy enterprise opportunities.
The Regional Head of Enterprise Development will work collaboratively with Enterprise Development teams in the five countries where we work (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Ghana); with the Director of Enterprise Development and with other functional teams. The role will report to the Executive Director – Africa with a dotted reporting line to the Director of Enterprise Development at CAMFED International.
Responsibilities of the Job Opportunity At CAMFED)
- Business Finance: Play a leading role to significantly scale up CAMFED’s provision of business finance – particularly revolving loans – to women entrepreneurs. This will include working collaboratively with colleagues for the development of systems and standards for risk assessment, risk culture, loan assessment and repayment tools and performance monitoring. This approach must be centred on CAMFED’s enabling and supportive culture for women’s success.
- Business Technology: Provide the enterprise lens (working across teams) for the development of digital tools and resources for enterprise development such business financial record-keeping, mobile money and e-marketing / e-commerce opportunities.
- Strategic Partnerships: Build regional partnerships to support CAMFED Association members to build profitable micro-enterprises. This may include: negotiating new market access, facilitating business collaboration within the CAMFED Association and knowledge sharing.
- Teamwork: Work collaboratively with colleagues to support innovations in CAMFED’s enterprise development strategy through technical advice, regional partnerships and knowledge sharing. This may include supporting cooperative and regional sales network development for example.
- Training, Coaching and Standards: Support and uphold best practice and standards for enterprise development across the consortium.
- Help build new fundraising partnerships and opportunities.
- Any other tasks as required.
QUALIFICATION, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
- Experience in providing loan finance for micro-entrepreneurs, for example through work in microfinance.
- Experience in business development services to help rural entrepreneurs to succeed, expand into new sectors and access new market opportunities, for example through work with a MSME development agency.
- Understanding of and practical experience of enabling entrepreneurs to access new digital opportunities associated with business development.
- Understanding of the challenges that female entrepreneurs face and experience in supporting women’s business growth.
- Experience of building strong multi-sectoral partnerships in the enterprise development space and of working with key bodies supporting enterprise development and regional business collaboration opportunities.
- Experience of supporting entrepreneurs to develop businesses in the climate-smart / green economy space.
- Awareness of, and ability to evaluate, business growth opportunities for micro entrepreneurs.
- Experience of managing complex projects, financial accountability and reporting.
- Experience of managing teams effectively and working in multi-country teams.
- Technical expertise for agro-business growth opportunities and climate-smart strategies for businesses.
- Committed to CAMFED’s goals and mission
- Knowledge and expertise for core business skills, business finance, market access
- Strong project management and budget management skills
- Excellent team worker, able to collaborate effectively and build strong partnerships
- Excellent written and verbal communicator
- Committed to enabling women’s business success
- Proactive, problem-solving and positive attitude
- Approachable, supportive and encouraging style, informing effective coaching and helping others to succeed
LOCATION: This new role can be located in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia or Zimbabwe.
CAMFED Job Opportunity Application
If you are interested in the Exciting Job Opportunity At CAMFED, please forward your application to: hr@camfed.org.
Closing Date: by midnight on Tuesday 4 January 2022.
Please include:
– Reference ‘Application Regional Head of ED’ in subject line of your email
– A cover letter of maximum 2 pages explaining why you have applied for the role
– A CV of maximum 3 pages.
Note: We will contact successful candidates for interviews after the closing date.
CAMFED is committed to providing equality of opportunity and valuing diversity for all current and prospective staff, volunteers and Board members. We aim to ensure that this commitment, reinforced by our values, is embedded in our day-to-day working practices and our work together.