Job Title: Partnerships & Network Lead
Hiring Organization: Mercy
Corps
Location – Locality: Nairobi
Location – Region: Kenya
Industry: NGO
Job Type: Full
Time
Salary: KES
Date Posted: 05/01/2024
Mercy Corps is a global humanitarian organization working in over 40 countries at the front lines of today’s biggest crises. Mercy Corps has built a reputation for innovative economic development programming, particularly working with start-ups, and hosts a venture capital arm called Mercy Corps Ventures. Its youth employment work places a focus on jobtech (read more here), which it has worked with for over a decade – investing, supporting product innovation, and conducting research on the opportunities for the sector. In late 2021, Mercy Corps launched the Jobtech Alliance, an ecosystem-building initiative around inclusive jobtech in Africa.
The Jobtech Alliance is an ecosystem-building initiative, which seeks to build the inclusive jobtech ecosystem in Africa through two complementary workstreams: (1) Improving the Enabling Environment for platforms to thrive and businesses and create quality jobs, through research and insights, community-building, development of open-source standards and tools, and improvement of the funding and policy environment (2) Venture Support to jobtech start-up across 10 African markets – we seek to improve strategy, product and operational innovations which make their services more viable and scalable, more inclusive and/or delivering better quality jobs for the users they serve (through technical assistance, project delivery support, grant capital and connections to partners).
The
Position
The
Jobtech Alliance Partnerships & Network Lead plays a lead role on the first
workstream outlined above, while contributing to improved performance of
Jobtech Platforms across the continent. S/he is responsible for building the
community as a fundamental anchor for all other activities of the Jobtech
Alliance, and building out complementary workstreams. Firstly, this involves
managing community outreach and onboarding, engagement (including online and
offline channels), and events. Secondly, it involves providing 1:1 support to
platforms to ensure that they get the most of the Jobtech Alliance, as well as
identifying and managing further workstreams and partnerships that contribute
to the growth and enhancement of the ecosystem and community.
Who You
Are
You are a
creative extrovert who has phenomenal EQ, and are deeply passionate about
startups and employment in Africa. You are strategic and can build things from
scratch, and know the difference between a good and a dud partnership. You have
a skill at facilitating, and are a natural connector. You are highly organized,
and can keep the day-to-day ticking while working on ambitious new projects.
Key Responsibilities
Community
& Partnerships Strategy (15%)
- Lead
the overarching community management strategy & develop new ideas
about how to improve both size of membership and quality of engagement.
You’re the primary KPI holder for quantity of members and quality of
engagement.
- Develop
processes for community management and maintain the Jobtech Alliance
Playbook around community engagement. Establish our model to enable us to
better share useful resources / collaborations with platforms on a 1:1
basis.
- Evolve
strategy, and identify opportunities for partnerships, special projects,
or services that would improve the enabling environment of the ecosystem
- Community
Outreach, Recruitment And Onboarding (10%)
- Drive
membership of the Jobtech Alliance community through mapping of startups
in the sector, outreach and promotion, direct engagement with startups,
and creative outreach campaigns
- Review
Platform Member applications on a regular basis, and conduct onboarding
with new startups
- Other
activities, as guided by his/her community engagement strategy
- Community
Engagement And Events (25%)
- Maintain
social media channels (LinkedIn and Twitter) with quality and engaging
content (including user-generated) to promote high levels of learning and
engagement. Where possible, develop more creative content based on Jobtech
Alliance blogs and other learning
- Manage
Jobtech Alliance website, email, and other communications channels
- Organize
and host meet-ups for the Jobtech Alliance community in different markets
- Organize
and manage webinars hosted by Jobtech Alliance and partners
- Go-to
organizer for bigger events, including the Africa-wide Jobtech Summit
Platform
Support (25%)
- Maintain
1:1 relationships with community-members, and maintain a finger on the
pulse of what the community needs
- Identify
unique needs of platforms, and play a ‘connector role’, sharing useful
Jobtech Alliance resources, introductions to other Platform Members, or
beyond
- Partnerships
And Special Projects (25%)
- Based
on emerging opportunities, and feedback from the community, identify
partners and lead special projects which improve the enabling environment
for inclusive jobtech platforms in Africa
- This
could improve projects including (but not limited to): partnerships with
useful service providers, the building of open-source tools solving key
problems for start-ups, pilots with external actors, policy roundtables,
and more.
Minimum
Qualification & Transferable Skills
- A
minimum of 5 years of experience in community engagement, project
management, and/or leadership roles in the startup space in Africa
- Experience
working in jobtech platforms strongly preferred, as a founder/leader a
plus
- Experience
building communities in the startup space in Africa, and/or with diverse
stakeholder management.
- Experience
managing and growing social media channels, demonstrating creativity in
content and engagement. Flawless written English and evidenced track
record of developing compelling content in written form and beyond.
- Demonstrated
capacity to come up with ideas and build things from scratch that are
rolled out with multiple stakeholders.
- Living
Conditions / Environmental Conditions
- This
role is for people with right to work in Kenya or Nigeria, though remote
work arrangements for those with right to work in other African countries
may be considered.
- Ongoing
Learning
- In
support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective,
efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team
members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further
their personal and/or professional growth and development
