Business Advisor

Description

• TechnoServe is currently implementing Phase II of the Business Women Connect (BWC) project funded by ExxonMobil Foundation in Mozambique
• The program’s objective is to increase women’s economic opportunity by promoting the effective use of formal savings products and business skills among women banking agents. By partnering with Letshego – a bank that provides a formal, accessible financial product called LetsGo – we will engage approximately 200 women business owners to help them improve their own businesses as well as becoming more effective service providers and ambassadors of formal savings to thousands of other women in Mozambique
• To sustain our impact, we will also advise Letshego on how to entrench effective recruitment and training of women as agents and as Letshego clients in its expansion model for the future by demonstrating a clear business case for doing so
• The two primary outcomes of the BWC project are: 1) Increased capacity and number of women LetsGo agents and 2) Increased capacity of Letshego to reach women agents and clients
• The Business Advisor (BA) is expected to play a key role in the planning, implementation and monitoring of all field activities
• She will: execute all field activities in a timely and high quality manner, understand the needs, opportunities and constraints of Mozambican business women and ensure that the program activities are responsive to these insights, ensure the roll out of highly effective program training, deliver high quality Teacher Training to our partner, Letshego Bank, actively support the program’s monitoring and evaluation including the work of third parties, manage the field staff (Business Counselors) who are designated as direct reports and support the management of relationships with key stakeholders
• The Business Advisor will be based in Maputo, Mozambique, with travel to Inhambane

Duties

• Project Management: Supervise the delivery of project deliverables, activities and targets in a timely manner as per the project’s work plan
• Ensure Business Counselors have clarity to their role, and are executing to the work plan and meeting targets/milestones
• Guarantee that Business Counselors are delivering effective, impactful training and coaching on financial literacy and business skills to business women and female banking agents, and provide them with insightful advice and recommendations when needed to improve the women’s performance
• Ensure that the project’s goal of increased access to savings and improved business skills of female business owners and LetsGo agents is at the forefront of every training, coaching, monitoring and stakeholder engagement activity
• Proactively raise issues of concern with program leadership
• Training of Trainers: Undergo the “training of trainers” training, together with TNS Business Counselors on key topics such as Facilitation and Adult teaching skills; Gender Awareness and Gender Sensitive Recruitment, Financial Literacy, LetsGo Competitive advantages and Business Skills
• Coordinate all activities related to the preparation of training activities of Letshego staff and ensure operational, procurement and finance practices are fully adhered to as per TechnoServe policy
• Conduct the “training of trainers” for Letshego staff (CIFOs) on abovementioned topics to strengthen their capacity to identify, recruit and develop the capacity of business women to effectively use and promote LetsGo products while improving their businesses
• Conduct the “training of trainers” for Letshego staff (Promoters) on Facilitation and Adult teaching skills
• Gender Awareness and Gender Sensitive Recruitment Financial Literacy and LetsGo Comparative advantages to strengthen their capacity to recruit more female clients by fine tuning their business case pitch and ensuring they are talking to their needs and demonstrating how LetsGo addresses these
• Oversee the refresher trainings and on-going coaching of CIFOs and promoters through regular workshops and meetings
• Support promoters in identifying, developing relationships and training female savings groups on basic financial literacy and LetsGo savings package as a strategy to reach potential female clients or agents
• Gender Responsive Design & Execution:
• Understand and streamline the project’s gender integration requirements, at delivery level - ensuring the gendered needs of business women are addressed and at institutional level - complying with TechnoServe’s gender recruitment policy
• Deliver high quality Gender Awareness trainings to Letshego Staff (CIFOs and Promoters) to ensure they understand and own BWC’s strategy of recruiting and training women agents and reaching more female LetsGo clients
• Deliver refresher trainings and ongoing coaching to CIFOs and Promoters on gender messaging to ensure they are effectively delivering TechnoServe’s gender messaging and recruitment strategies and that they reach the targets set by BWC
• Incorporate role modeling into the gender trainings, bringing in most successful promoters and CIFOs (in terms of recruitment of women clients) to understand their motivations and tools
• Supervise the quality of the BC’s gender awareness module training to women agents to ensure the right gender message is being passed on (ensuring Gender Based Violence mitigation strategies are being followed) and that women agents are effectively absorbing the learnings so they witness increased economic empowerment
• Set up an incentives system with clear Key Performance Indicators on gender targets and cascading rewards for CIFOs, promoters and women agents
• Coordinate monthly meetings with CIFOs & Promoters to reward the highest performing female and male CIFO and promoters with regards to women agent/client recruitment
• Research the possibility of appointing and supporting a Gender Champion at Letshego, taking into account key factors for success (the person should be senior, respected, gender sensitive and have time and resources for making a change)
• Contribute lessons learned & best practices and support the development of the Gender inclusion strategy for Letshego
• Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting & Compliance:
• Coordinate all monitoring, evaluation, reporting and compliance needs of the project, per the M&E plan and gender targets
• Work with CIFOs/Letshego to obtain sex-disaggregated data on agents’ commissions, transaction flows, number of female clients, etc. to enable a gendered performance review of CIFOs, promoters and agents
• Understand the impact of the project on women’s increased incomes and volume of savings; and adjust the program based on these findings
• Ensure that training registers are compiled and completed by Business Counselors
• Collect contact information for all women agents trained by BWC
• Oversee a baseline and endline survey with a subset of business women being trained by the project to determine if their savings have increased and if they are implementing business skills
• Actively work with the team to capture successes, failures and learnings and share these learnings internally and externally, and discuss with PM how to adjust program accordingly
• Support preparation of narrative reports for the Country Director
• Ensure activities are carried out in accordance with TechnoServe, as well as donor requirements
• Stakeholder Management:
• Develop and sustain a communicative, positive working relationship with Letshego Bank’s financial inclusion team for a seamless coordination of training, coaching, M&E and gender activities
• Identify, mobilize and raise awareness of female savings groups in the communities about LetsGo Services and coordinate with promoters to deliver basic financial literacy training.
• Develop a trust-based relationship with local government officials, the business community, market/community leaders and other key stakeholders in the areas of operation
• Other Duties as Assigned: Providing English and Portuguese translation in written and verbal form Undertake any other duties as assigned by your manager

Requisites

• University degree in Business, Management, Agriculture, Economics, International Development or a related field required
• A minimum 3 years of experience working with either businesses, entrepreneurship, microfinance, mobile financial services or community development focused on women’s economic empowerment
• Knowledge of business management and entrepreneurship
• Understanding and demonstrated passion for gender equality, experience with gender sensitive programming a plus M&E and team supervision/management experience
• Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills a must
• Track record of building strong client or stakeholder relationships
• Ability to balance multiple priorities and meet demanding deadlines
• Demonstrated problem-solving skills
• Ability to work both independently and as part of a team
• Fluency in Portuguese and English, fluency in local language(s) is a plus

Notes

• Only short listed applicants will be contacted