Access to Finance Portfolio Manager (PM) (m/f)

Description

• The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) anticipates funding the five-year Promoting Market Systems, Innovation and Resilience (PREMIER) activity in Mozambique. The PREMIER activity will facilitate the development of an inclusive, resilient, and sustainable market system to boost agriculture-led economic growth in the Nacala corridor of northern Mozambique. The activity will use a market systems approach and will focus on minimizing barriers that disadvantage the vulnerable, women and youth and exclude them from economic opportunities within the agriculture sector. This activity is anticipated to cover a combination of staple and high value crops.
• The activity will implement solutions including:
• Enhancing access to finance across sectors for the rural poor and SMEs
• Enhancing risk mitigation management
• Building the capacity of smallholder producers and agribusinesses
• Increasing incomes for smallholder farmers
• Establishing strong and transparent relationships between actors
• Expanding employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, especially for youth and women
• The Technical Team will be responsible for facilitating support to primarily private sector actors through three main components: a) exploit attractive market opportunities where the Nacala Corridor has a comparative advantage, b) catalyze and expand local agro-processing industries, and c) work with and through local third-party service providers as delivery partners. With strategic guidance from the COP, the technical team comprises the Technical Director and five Portfolio Managers (PMs). The PMs manage relationships with clients and related local delivery partners to reach Premier’s objectives for inclusive supply chains, food processing, route to market distribution, business development services, and access to finance.

Duties

• The Access to Finance Portfolio Manager will lead the Premier activities to facilitate financial institutions and large-scale buyers to offer more affordable working capital loans to agribusinesses within the Nacala corridor. In order to achieve this, the responsibilities of the Access to Finance PM will include the following:
• Define and execute a strategy for the portfolio objective working with private sector partners, public sector actors and stakeholders to create sustainable changes to the relevant market systems Leverage Premier’s (Local Partner Investment Fund) LPIF to incentivize local financial partners to expand their services in the Nacala Corridor and the PSIF sub-grant mechanism to provide smart subsidies to catalyze and de-risk financing to select agribusinesses
• Lead Premier’s strategy for traditional commercial banking activities by partnering with banks to facilitate blended finance product, and supporting banks to place agricultural desks (agridesks) in the Nacala Corridor Increase access to working capital loans by supporting commercial banks and other lenders such as insurance companies, brokerage companies, and development finance institutions (DFIs) to reduce interest rates and de-risk loans
• Improve supply chain financing options by connecting large-scale buyers with financing so they can offer inputs and working capital loans to supply chain intermediaries
• Facilitate introductions to investment hubs or capital advisors that have worked with firms in Mozambique or seek to work in agribusiness impact investing to accelerate equity investments in larger agribusinesses
• Facilitate expansion of digital financial solutions by helping local partners Movitel and Vodacom to expand their customer outreach and acquisition by linking them to agribusinesses and supporting the promotion of youth and women as mobile money agents and users
• Contribute to Premier networking and relationship management with private and public actors to promote
• Premier objectives and facilitate wider adoption and crowding in
• Drive monitoring, evaluation and learning across the portfolio through collection and analysis of data to measure performance and impact

Requisites

• Master’s level Degree in either Business, Economics, Agriculture, Finance or equivalent
• 5 years of experience or more as the technical manager for donor-funded value chain, M4P, and/or Market Systems Development projects
• Demonstrated success using facilitation in at least one of the following: the USAID value chain approach, M4P, or Market Systems Development approach, which led to greater competitiveness and inclusiveness in markets
• Fluency in English and Portuguese
• Demonstrated experience with conducting value chain analysis and developing value chain work plans is desired
• Strong private sector market orientation, entrepreneurial and innovative thinker
• Detail orientation, including strong organizational, analytical, and quantitative skills
• Excellent computer skills in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other administrative applications
• Communicative and open to exchange and learning
• Fluency in Portuguese with excellent oral and written communication skills required
• Proficiency in English is preferred

Notes

• Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted
• We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe's vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply
• With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability and all other protected classes
• We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks
• If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources at recruitment@tns.org