Country Director; Accelerate Prosperity

Country Director (CD) for Accelerate Prosperity (AP) in Tajikistan

Title: Country Director (CD) for Accelerate Prosperity (AP) in Tajikistan

Contract Type: Full time

Location: Dushanbe city

Remuneration: To attract the best candidate

Duration: 1 year (with possibility of extension)

Deadline: November 28th, 2024

Accelerate Prosperity

Accelerate Prosperity initiative (AP) launched in 2016 as a joint initiative of the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development’s Industrial Promotion Services (AKFED-IPS). AP’s overall mandate is to create an inclusive and prosperous society powered by entrepreneurs. Through a mix of technical support and tailored financing for start-ups, small and growing businesses (SGBs), AP facilitates entrepreneurship, employment especially for youth and women and socio-economic development within its relevant geographies.

Job Description

With an entrepreneurial disposition, the Country Director (CD) is responsible for overall success of AP in the country, its management and operations. The CD identifies his/her in-country team to achieve intended results, and in line with the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set by AP’s Global Executive Director (AP ED). The main objective of the CD is threefold:

Management of AP in Tajikistan, including strategy, program, investment portfolio quality, financial management along with ensuring an inclusive team environment, good and improving talent pool, productive workspace for all importantly women and youth.
Donor and grant management, including resource mobilization, oversight and compliance.
Strategic engagement, including local institutional partnerships and legal compliance.

AP CD reports to the AP ED on strategy, management, prorgamme, investments, operations, associated day to day matters and overall performance. He/she will also report to the Chairman of the AP national board on legal and compliance matters, resource mobilisation, government relations and associated matters.

The CD will work in close coordination with a wide array of internal and external stakeholders to accomplish these objectives. She/ he will be required to travel frequently to all program areas of AP and to other AP country units as and when required and needed (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc.).

Key Responsibilities

Objective 1: Management of AP in Tajikistan, including Strategy, Program and Investment Portfolio

Program Delivery: Lead and oversee design, marketing, promotion, delivery and quality of AP’s services to startup and SGBs across the target regions, including awareness-raising and inspiration/ ideation events, training and technical assistance to start-ups and SGBs, business mentorship including the development of mentors pool as well as promotion of Virtual Accelerate, a one stop shop solution of AP for itself and other incubators, accelerators and investment funds.

Investment Disbursement & Quality: Lead and oversee investment due diligence and structuring, deployment of patient investments, and ensure good quality of the portfolio through improved repayment and recoveries. Ensure execution of effective and timely measures on non performing investments.
Operational Structure: Develop effective financial, human resources and operational structure that is lean, efficient and delivers improved value for money than the current status and market benchmarks. Put in place the KPIs and the incentive structure that gets best of the staff, drives high levels of productivity and quality outputs. Improve existing talent pool, improve proportion of women in decision making roles and youth as a proportion of total staff. Ensure that the structure is consistent with AKDN’s internal policies and ethical standards and that meet local laws and regulations.
Governance: Organise quarterly AP national board meetings, especially on legal, regulatory, complaince and matters related to grants management.
Investment Approvals: Seek National Investment Committee’s (NIC) approvals for all business financing. In addition, seek reviews and approvals from AP ExCom for deals above and equal to $50,000.
External Investments: Lead and oversee the design and effective delivery of AP’s support to the entrepreneurs/ companies to access new sources of capital and technical assistance from partners, including banks, SME, VC and PE Funds, angel investors and business service providers through national pitch sessions, investment platforms, strategic partnerships with external investment funds and multiple financing partners.
Financial Management and Compliance: Ensure effective financial management and compliance with regulatory and donor requirements, leading to low risk internal and external audit ratings, no disallowances and/or litigation issues.
Data Management and Analysis: Ensure complete application of AP’s performance and data management framework and architecture in Tajikistan. This includes collection, storage and analysis of all data required for AP’s institutional performance management framework (PMF), Business Plan (BP) and donors. Support AP national and regional data and insights team for improving the systems for data, collection, storage, monitoring and oversight of AP’s program and financing activities.
Reporting: Ensure regular and timely reporting to the AP ED on AP performance against business

Objective 2: Donor and Grant Management, including resource mobilization, oversight and compliance

Fundraising: Lead AP’s resource mobilization efforts for the country in close coordination with country level AKF and donor units, including co-designing new projects for donors and corporate sponsors.
Planning: Develop detailed project implementation plans (PIP) and budgets for each donor grant, to ensure timely implementation of activities according to donor requirements.
Implementation: Ensure quality implementation of the programs committed to donors, including achievement of program and financial targets.
Reporting: Establish and ensure effective monitoring, evaluation and learning practices for donor reporting. Ensure quality grant reports are prepared and timely submission to the donors according to the contact.
Compliance: Ensure complete compliance to donor requirements with support from AKF.
Relationship Management: Support AKF in donor relationship management as and when needed in order to continue/ expand the existing partnerships and develop new partners.

Objective 3: Strategic Engagement, including local partnerships and legal compliance

Institutional Partnerships: Lead AP’s engagement, partnership and coordination with AKDN stakeholders in the country - AKF, MSDSP, AKFED (IPS, Investment and Credit Bank), UCA etc., other ecosystem incubators/ accelerators, angel, SME, VC and PE investment funds as well as with line ministries of the Government in close coordination and support from AKDN stakeholders.
Legal/ Regulatory Compliance: Ensure effective comminicaton and engagement and relations with the regulators overtime

Any other task: as may be required and/ or given by Chairman AP Local Board and Executive Director.

Eligibility Requirements

Education:

(Required): Master’s degree in business management, economics and/or the related field.
(Required): International exposure (in-person) in formal education and/ or other educational programs.
(Preferable): Executive Education and/or diploma in investment management, investing and/ or related fields. Prior experience in the space will also be counted towards it.

Experience:

(Required): Minimum 4-5 years of experience in the private sector, along with significant exposure in designing and executing new business ventures, investing, raising external investments and/ or associated work. Strong networking in the private sector. Experience in founding and investing in a new business venture (own venture as the founder) and/or managing an early-stage business will be required.
(Required): Minimum 2-3 years of experience in the startup business incubator, accelerator and/or a similar role, preferably in business pipeline development and/or raising financing.
(Required): Reasonable exposure in the development and not for profit space, especially in grants management, compliance and reporting.
(Required): Significant experience in designing innovative solutions (product, service and/or program) that has demonstrated success.

Personality Traits

AP is looking for a person who is creative, inclusive, innovative and agile thinker with a strong sense of purpose, passion and commitment for promoting entrepreneurship in Tajikistan as an instrument to solve some of the most critical problems being faced by the people.
The CD will be a person of good clairvoyance and professional integrity, a resilient attitude, with an intense passion for AP’s mandate.
He/s he will be a go-getter with entrepreneurial mindset and have skills to navigate through systematic challenges.
He/ she will be a calculated and informed risk taker who not only trusts experience but bets on raw talent and potential, especially of youth and women, to deliver the expected results.
He/ she will believe in diversity and viewing it as an opportunity to create prosperity and success for all.
He/ she should be the role model for young leaders, carrying him/herself as the person who respects others and earns the same from them through his/ her attitude and action.

Interested applicants should send their 2-page resume/ CV and a 1 page cover letter (to email: hr@accelerateprosperity.org) explaining why they consider themselves the most eligible candidate for the job.

Applicants who do not meet the “required criteria” above will not be shortlisted.

Deadline for applications: 28th November 2024.

AP strongly encourages qualified female applicants for this position. AP seeks to ensure that male and female employees are given equal career opportunities and that staff members are able to keep an appropriate balance between work and private life.

AP Tajikistan recruitment and selection procedures reflect our commitment to equal opportunity, safeguarding of children from abuse and zero tolerance of sexual harassment.

DISCLAIMER

By sharing their cover letter and resume with AP in response to this job application, applicants consent for AP to keep this information on file for recruitment and human resources management purposes.