Type: Impact Investing
Role: Investment Officer
Organization: EWB Ventures
Location: Accra, Ghana
Deadline: July 14, 2019
About Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB)
EWB is a free-thinking charitable organization that brings people and ideas together to tackle the most crucial causes of poverty and inequality. We nurture talent and leadership, enable social entrepreneurship and advocate for policy innovations to cross-breed systems-changing innovations to ensure economic and public opportunity reaches everyone, including the most underserved and marginalized populations, especially women and girls.
Through our leadership curriculum and Fellowships Program, we offer experiential learning opportunities in Canada and sub-Saharan Africa to launch future shapers equipped to understand and re-engineer complex social systems. For more information, visit ewb.ca.
About Engineers Without Borders Canada Ventures
EWB Ventures is a seed-stage investment vehicle backed by Engineers Without Borders Canada. We are dedicated to supporting early-stage, highly scalable, innovative, for-profit, social enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We make tailored, long-term investments of up to $100,000 in ventures with high potential to drive systemic change for the benefit of the underserved in new, untested ways.
About the Role
The Fellow will work with EWB Ventures, supporting all aspects of EWB’ social venture portfolio, including network building, deal sourcing, analysis, due diligence, transaction closing/process management, and providing support to our portfolio of ventures. The role will be highly entrepreneurial, spanning emerging market venture investing, consulting, and entrepreneurship, focusing on early-stage businesses that have the potential to systemic change for the benefit of the underserved in new, untested ways.
This opportunity is tailored to candidates looking to make an impact in shaping a highly innovative model in disrupting poverty. We are looking someone who has the courage to question the status quo and ask difficult questions, yet has the humility to listen and commit to personal growth through honest self-assessment. This is a unique opportunity to invest time in acquiring transferable investing skills in an unconventional business setting, and the most suitable candidate is someone who has an intrinsic business acumen and a demonstrated ability to adapt across multiple environments.
Responsibilities:
- Consult with Venture Gender Inclusion Specialist to build Gender Lens Investing Strategy;
- Use Gender Score from EWB as baseline as GLI strategy is built and implemented with particular emphasis on applying a gender lens to identify new and/or untapped markets, increase productivity, effectively mitigate risks and costs, enhance economic empowerment of marginalized groups including women and identify opportunities to increase female talent and leadership within EWB Ventures;
- Research and identify relevant social enterprises, investment partners, and opportunities in the impact investing space across West Africa;
- Prepare and present key deal materials including initial investment summaries and investment memos and gender assessment;
- Support portfolio management, including capital raising, financial modeling, network building, monitoring and reporting;
- Research and develop thought pieces around key themes or sectors, sharing lessons within EWB and externally via blogs/social media; and
- Other duties, as developed by the team.
Sound exciting? Here’s who we are looking for.
Skills & Qualifications
Required
- Passion for entrepreneurship and commitment to alleviating poverty;
- Intellectual curiosity and a strong desire to learn;
- Strong analytical and quantitative skills;
- Exceptional interpersonal and communications skills;
- Highly motivated, with ability to work proactively and independently;
- Ability to work well with people from different countries and cultures and amenability to working with different time zones in an efficient manner;
- Excellent time management skills and ability to manage multiple projects concurrently;
- 2+ years of professional experience.
Preferred
- Experience conducting market and company research;
- Knowledge of Gender Lens Investing – Experience in GLI considered an asset;
- Awareness of cross-cultural communication and ability to maintain constructive relationships with a diverse set of key stakeholders;
- Experience living/working in a developing economy – Sub-Saharan Africa considered a plus;
- Advanced degree (MBA or equivalent);
- Professional experience in Business/Finance, Management Consulting, International Development, or Entrepreneurship.
Application Inquiries
- For inquiries about the EWB Fellowship experience, please contact: fellowrecruitment@ewb.ca
- For inquiries about the role with EWB S&I Team, please contact: Beth Foster
Application Instructions
For further details, please refer to our website.
