Key Responsibilities:

Securing partnerships and resources to deploy high-impact gender-lens and women economic empowerment investments (60%)

• Continuously challenge and deepen AECF’s strategy, vision and mission to contribute to tackling the root causes of gender inequalities in business, investment, and power relations.
• Work with the Partnerships team to manage current high-priority partners and identify strategic future partners (including funders, implementation, and knowledge partners or consortium partners), understanding their partnership priorities and their near- and long-term goals.
• Design and deliver investment vehicles, investment proposals, or risk-mitigation instruments, contributing to growing the volumes of investment into women-empowering ventures and contributing to bridging the gender investment gap.
• Nurture and grow existing fundraising streams including grant applications.
• Conduct research and draft proposals and concept notes of innovative and cutting-edge vehicles to tackle gender inequalities in the financial sector, and empower rural women in their entrepreneurial journey.
• Stand as a key account manager for relationships with the gender lens investing ecosystem of funders, like-minded institutions, and grassroot partners.
• Prioritize and lead on new business pipelines.
• Contribute to the establishment of appropriate linkages with the relevant state/government departments, implementing partners, donors, private sector bodies, potential project partners, and civil society.

Institutional development and gender strategy implementation (40%)

• Develop and mainstream, at all internal levels, the implementation of AECF’s Gender Strategy – including working closely with teams across AECF to ensure that AECF’s gender lens investing offering is fully embedded across all systems, governance documents, and operating procedures and ensure the effective roll-out of key products developed by the team including those related to training and capacity building, tools, and manage internal/external communications.
• Management of the gender team and ensuring that the portfolio and impact teams receive the necessary support to apply a gender lens across investments and throughout the investment cycle.
• Continuously aim to improve and deepen AECF’s ability to learn from impact and understand how empowerment and that change happens for women and communities.
• Management and oversight of internal working groups and AECF’s Gender Lens Investing Community.
• Represent AECF at internal/external stakeholder engagements related to AECF’s gender lens investing work.
• Active participation across several of AECF’s flagship markets shaping gender initiatives and partnerships in the field.

The Candidate

Suitable candidates should:

• Hold a Graduate/Master’s qualification in Development Finance, Gender, Entrepreneurship Studies, or any other relevant field of study.
• Have a minimum of seven (7) years of experience in income generation from partnerships, secured/retention of multi-million-dollar partnerships, and leading high-profile partnership engagements.
• Have a strong commercial acumen and deep understanding of women’s economic empowerment and gender-lens investing space in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as an understanding of dynamics and key sectors operating in rural economies (particularly Agribusiness and Renewables) in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Have experience in financial engineering for inclusive investment vehicles, and experience developing proposals for bilateral donors, philanthropies, and in partnership with commercial investors in blended vehicles.
• Have excellent analytical and communication skills with the ability to prepare proposals, reports, and concept papers to a high level of proficiency.
• Have experience in leading teams and growing junior staff.
• Be fluent in English. Knowledge of French is an added advantage.

Key responsibilities:

Gender activities design, tools development, activities implementation

• Lead the implementation of the gender work under AECF’s portfolio of programmes and funds Investing in Women, and WEE, bringing together AECF’s expertise and resources to support companies to reduce gender gaps across leadership, employment, and entrepreneurship.
• Oversee the seamless implementation of the gender work of all programs in your portfolio, developing and maintaining detailed annual gender activities program management plans for piloting, scaling up gender offerings to selected companies.
• Set up and preparation of materials for gender activities implementation meetings and keep a track of reports on implementation progress across the AECF teams.
• Identify and proactively build relationships and liaise with local partners throughout implementation.
• Oversee gender program budget, monitor, manage and report on financial performance according to projects plan, liaise with donors or investors to deepen collaboration.
• Track performance indicators against the monitoring and evaluation plan, and defined theory of change.Deliver gender-specific advisory services to clients focused on women’s employment entrepreneurship, and other topics to drive inclusion in the private sector.

Partnership, knowledge and impact

• Work with the Manager – Gender and Partnerships to mobilize project resources, including funding by developing fundraising proposals, and identifying potential funding sources and linkages with donors.
• Contribute to thought leadership, representing AECF in GLI and WEE-focused forums and disseminating learnings and insights from your portfolio.
• Oversee and manage sectoral and topic-specific research (including financial services sector, blue economy, processing, insurance, agribusiness and transport, renewable energy, respectful workplaces).
• Draft company case studies that highlight innovative approaches to closing gender gaps in the private sector.
• Work with the communications team to develop innovative communications tactics including use of digital media, documentaries etc.

Internal gender mainstreaming

• Support gender mainstreaming across the institution.
• Work with the Manager-Partnerships & Gender to support portfolio teams with gender flagging against set targets.
• Promote gender knowledge among AECF colleagues through themed events, communications, and timely reporting.

The Candidate:

Suitable candidates should:

• Hold a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Development Finance, Gender Economics, Finance, Business, or any other related field of study.
• Have a minimum of five (5) years of experience in one or more of the following areas: social entrepreneurship, impact investing, management consulting, private sector development, agriculture, agribusiness, SME finance, rural financial services, and/or renewable energy and adaptation to combat climate change.
• Be a seasoned gender lens investing professional with in-depth experience working with the private sector on gender-smart solutions in emerging markets.
• Have experience in establishing the business case for women’s economic empowerment and know how to provide gender-specific advisory services to private sector companies.
• Be able to routinely lead operations and research projects and integrate the work of other (often multi-disciplinary) professional staff.
• Be able to proficiently interact with companies’ senior management, development partners and communicate at the policy level with senior government counterparts and other organizations with confidence on the topic.
• Have technical-operational gender and private sector experience in particular on women’s employment and entrepreneurship.
• Demonstrate an ability to conceptualize, design, and implement multi-sector, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and client engagements and to produce analytical reports for clients and donors.
• Have a track record in managing consultants in a project, monitoring project issues, and tasks, meeting deadlines and setting priorities.
• Have a strong ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently (including to media), articulate issues, and recommend solutions.
• Have a thorough understanding of the international development agenda, and key stakeholders such as the UN, G-20, private sector partnerships such as the Global Banking Alliance for Women, the Global Compact, etc.
• Be fluent in English. Knowledge of French is an added advantage.