Position Overview
Position Summary
Women’s World Banking is seeking a Director, Advisory Services, Africa, to join a forward-thinking, cross-functional, high-performing, collaborative team focused on delivering innovative customer experiences, banking services, and products that create business and customer value to serve low-income women. S/He will use data, customer context, and business intelligence to design and build customer-centric products, partnering with financial services providers to solve business problems.
The ideal candidate has experience in banking, financial inclusion, and financial services products and services development (savings, loans, digital, insurance, Fintech, etc.) and strong business development, sales, and relationship management skills. The candidate must be a strategic thinker with the ability to see the big picture and propose new ideas for ways of engaging the target audience (customers, donors, investors, financial service providers), and have experience applying data and business intelligence to drive business and customer value. Projects may vary in number, size, and complexity.
Roles and Responsibilities
You should apply to this position if:
- You take initiative to understand the perspective of diverse stakeholders and make strategic recommendations based on what is good for the customers, project partners, teams, and organizations you work with;
- You find working on complex and challenging problems invigorating;
- You thrive in ambiguity;
- You are driven to find solutions to “making it work”;
- You are excited by understanding, learning, and iterating on new methodologies;
- You have a “yes and” mindset when it comes to teamwork and leadership;
- Are interested in making business and social impact and are passionate about serving low-income women.
Responsibilities:
- Lead discovery, development and execution of high priority business initiatives, financial products, and services in Africa’s priority markets ;
- Implement project management best practices, templates, policies, tools and partnerships to monitor and maintain oversight on workplans, budgets, targets and both internal and external reporting;
- Work directly with leadership, participate in project planning to define the scope and objectives of programs, and utilize strong project management skills, stakeholder management experience, networking, and communication skills;
- Full project life cycle ownership: successful project delivery will include full implementation from initiation to deployment for multiple initiatives simultaneously;
- Track key performance indicators and create reports and presentations to be delivered to all relevant stakeholders;
- Lead cross-functional teams to understand and enhance processes, leverage existing content and materials, identify interdependencies and common issues, and share leading practices across initiatives;
- Develop commercially viable business cases for new products and product enhancements to enable prioritization and justify investments into new and existing products;
- Establish relationships and collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand business and customer needs and continually enhance project processes, service offerings, and delivery for partners.
- Manage a team of 2-4 people, providing regular performance feedback, developing personal and professional goals, and providing support for their growth;
- Monitor activities and outcomes to ensure performance in accordance with Women’s World Banking’s internal goals and programmatic M&E frameworks
Required Qualifications
Skills & Attributes:
- Collaborative team player who is an astute listener and thinker while being a self-starter and independent thinker with significant personal ambition and a sense of urgency to make a business and social impact within the financial inclusion community;
- Excellent analytical skills and the ability to synthesize data and information to provide a high-level view that is accessible to a range of audiences;
- Ability to quickly isolate problems, articulate them, and quickly implement solutions;
- Proficient financial modeler;
- Strong writing skills and ability to capture both large volumes of data and cogent key insights that can be communicated to different audiences;
- Supports a culture of excellence, openness, and the encouragement of new ideas;
- Willingness to ask for help;
- Is not afraid to fail and learn;
- Impeccable communication capabilities and instincts, understanding and applying formality or familiarity in appearance, speech and approach where appropriate;
Required Qualifications:
- MBA or Master’s degree in a related field
- 15+ years of product experience in the financial services/financial inclusion industry
- 10+ years of people management
- Experience in human-centered design and research, finance, consulting, etc.;
- Demonstrated ability to execute and successfully achieve objectives in a dynamic, fast-paced environment with aggressive timelines;
- Interest in the field of financial inclusion and gender;
- Clear, fast business communications expertise, including written analysis, meeting management, and presentations;
- Proven collaborative, negotiation, and persuasion skills;
- Strong presentation, verbal, and written communication skills;
- Demonstrated ability to work independently;
- Ability to work with remote teams
- Must be willing to travel extensively within Africa and other developing countries; and
- Fluency in English is a must. French or Portuguese is a plus.
Measure of Success
Within the first 75 days:
- Assume full responsibility for the position;
- Embrace Women’s World Banking’s core values and desired behaviors;
- Forge positive working relationships with the cross-functional team;
- Embrace Women’s World Banking’s unique characteristics and offerings;
- Learn and comprehend the Women’s World Banking business model;
- Become trained in and fully integrate the use of Women’s World Banking systems and policies into your day-to-day activities;
- Build and strengthen relationships with FSP partners
We offer comprehensive benefits including:
- Competitive salary & top tier benefits
- 15+ paid time off days in addition to paid sick days and holidays
- Company closes for two paid Mental Health and Rejuvenation Weeks per year (July & December)
- 401(k) with employer match / pension contributions where applicable
- Company paid professional development opportunities
- Flexible work options available, including work from home options (outside of fieldwork)
About Women's World Banking
We believe in being a force for the greater good, devoted to accelerating and growing the financial inclusion of women. With rapidly changing markets, influenced by technology and social behavioral expectations, we are embarking on a new chapter to transform the way we design and implement solutions.
For over 40 years, Women’s World Banking has partnered with financial institutions, showing them the benefit of investing in women as customers. We equip these institutions with in-depth research and data driven insights to develop financial products and educational programs. While our clients are financial service providers, our mission is to engage consumers – women who are marginalized by financial systems.
Women’s World Banking and WWB Asset Management is an equal employment opportunity for all regardless of race, color, citizenship, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran or reservist status or any other category protected by federal, state or local law.