Careers

Portfolio Fellow

Type: Business , Impact Investment

Role: Portfolio Fellow

Venture: MEST

Location: Accra, Ghana

Deadline: July 14 2019

 

About MEST

MEST Africa is an entrepreneurial training program, seed fund, tech incubator and community for African software entrepreneurs. MEST was created on the basis that talent is everywhere but opportunity is not. Each year, the most promising tech entrepreneurs from across the continent apply to MEST, and those selected come to Ghana for a 1-year intensive program which culminates in an investment pitch with the opportunity to receive funding and enter one of the MEST incubators.

MEST aims to create work and wealth locally by launching globally successful software companies based in Africa. Our goal is to train, support and invest in leaders who can become job creators and learn to build businesses solving real problems, that can scale.

In partnership with MEST,  as a Fellow with Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB Canada), you will be placed as a Portfolio Fellow with MEST to work with their team in Ghana. Throughout your Fellowship with EWB, you will receive guidance, mentorship and financial support from the community in Canada and in East and West Africa.

 

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 You

A Portfolio Fellow is a partner to MEST companies. You will be the chief enabler for assigned portfolio companies to scale effectively and be a part of a team effort to ensure the overall MEST portfolio is thriving.

 

Responsibilities

As a Portfolio Fellow for MEST, your responsibilities will include:

  • Utilize knowledge and skills related to your specialization to grow assigned portfolio companies and to work across all portfolio companies as requested by other portfolio fellows;
  • Develop portfolio management skills to become a more rounded and accomplished business advisor for start ups that are scaling;
  • Work with assigned portfolio companies to diagnose and understand their tier status (current state), develop a plan for scaling effectively, guide, direct and own their growth journey including bringing in relevant internal and external stakeholders;
  • Own and manage projects within the MEST Incubator Accra, based on specific needs of the organization and candidate’s specialized skills.

 

Sound exciting? Here’s who we are looking for.

 

Skills & Qualifications

  • 2 years of demonstrating successful use of specialized skill preferably on the continent or in an emerging market;
  • 2 years working on either frameworks for growth, venture building or investment funding;
  • 1 year experience of new market entry, business building including attracting direct investment or running own start up;
  • Your characteristics include:
    • Proactive : Problem solver : Persistent : Can do attitude : Team player, able to recognize and utilize others strengths : Willing and eager to learn : Good communication skills;
  • Awareness of cross-cultural communication and ability to maintain constructive relationships with diverse set of key stakeholders.

Desirable

  • Knowledge of Gender Lens Investing. Experience in GLI is an asset;
  • Background in gender inclusion, diversity and mainstreaming.

 

Application Inquiries

 

Application Instructions

For further details, please refer to our website.

Apply now

Donate Now

Help us build a better world

Donate Now