Job Description
Job Location: Kitale, Kenya
Contract: Full time, 2 years with opportunity to extend.
Reports to: Senior Innovations Manager
ABOUT THE JOB:
Village Enterprise is seeking a candidate who is innovative, solution oriented and creative to support the Innovations Team activities and Village Enterprise mission on ending extreme poverty.
The position holder involvement areas include; developing creative and innovative ideas around our Graduation Program; help in development of pilots by applying the key stages of Human Centered Design (Ideation, Piloting and Implementation); capacity training for Business Mentors and Field Coordinators and research and development of tools and strategies that ensure the organizations meets its goals.
JOB DESCRIPTION:
Core Program Support Responsibilities: 60%
Participate in designing, adaptation; coordinate implementation, and appraise pilot projects by employing human centered design thinking approaches.
Work with the field team to coordinate and periodically develop materials, plan and execute Business Mentor workshops.
Coordinate with the help of the field team to guide Bi-weekly meetings within the offices of mandate, by introducing creative materials and making them more effective.
Support new projects, ongoing projects and calendar activities like the Innovations Summit; on theme selection, planning and overall execution.
Participate in developing materials, inviting external resource persons that would be used to transfer knowledge and bridge capacities of Business Mentors and Field coordinators.
Participate in gathering of information and identifying sustainable partnerships on Financial Inclusion, Value Chain Development, Market Intelligence and linkages.
Write reports and develop presentations on ongoing projects, keep the whole team informed and update the documents on the various storage platforms like Google drive, and Box e.t.c.
Occasionally contribute to proposal development by keeping track of funding opportunities for the innovations teamwork and pass such opportunities to direct supervisor.
Assist in the development, assessment of standard operating tools like the Training Manual, Mentoring Guides and any other that may be introduced.
Participate in the development of training support materials like picture codes, charts and any other visual or audio aids.
Any other innovations work or program support work that may be assigned to you.
Innovations and Cross-functionality Responsibilities: 40%
Be an ardent ambassador and advocate on Innovations Teams work internally and externally if and when given the opportunity.
Ensure synchronization of activities between the ACDs/RMs work plans and the Innovations teams work by communicating work plans and planned activities.
Communication and coordination of work
Weekly check-ins with supervisor (Plan and structure effective One-on-one’s)
Provide information on work plan on Google Work Plan sheet on a weekly basis.
Participate and contribute effectively during the weekly Innovations Team meetings
Prompt response to email communications/ report deadlines and any follow-ups as may be requested
Team Work and Interpersonal skills:
Leverage on his/her interpersonal skills to ensure cohesiveness and teamwork.
Coordinator will take the time to understand other Coordinator’s, Manager’s and Director’s projects and actively provide insightful input.
Coordinator thinks of how to improve synergies on the team and improve workflow as a team
Management and Leadership:
The Coordinator manages competing tasks and deadlines with openness and efficiency
The Coordinator manages his/her own projects, including tracking their own deadlines and deliverables and executing next steps without needing to be reminded or prompted.
Provides desired leadership and guidance, has personal initiative and is self-drive towards achieving organizations goals.
INNOVATIONS COORDINATOR DESIRED SKILLS
Be a creative thinker with a natural knack towards developing projects and works that address the goals of the organization.
Be a solution oriented individual, who is able to asses, analyze situations and come up with well thought out solutions.
Detail oriented person, who strives to get in-depth understanding of pilots and projects through application of Human Centered Design Thinking methods.
The educational background that has created a base of understanding to be applied in the role. This will be a combination of university level degree preferably in Project Management/Agribusiness/Entrepreneurship, Micro-Finance or Business Administration and Management.
At least 3 years’ experience working in the Livelihoods development field, Value chains development, Market systems analysis, Market intelligence and linkages or rural micro-finance is a plus.
