Innovative Finance Portfolio Lead
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WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, colour, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status or disability.
ABOUT WFP
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies, and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. We are currently seeking to fill an Innovative Finance Portfolio Lead position in the INKA division, based in Munich, Germany.
Brief description of WFP Innovation Accelerator, INKA:
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the United Nations frontline agency fighting hunger. WFP reaches more than 100 million people every day – delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with smallholder farmers, communities, and governments to improve nutrition and build resilience.
The WFP Innovation Accelerator was named by Fast Company as Most Innovative Non-Profit Organization 2021 for its work in identifying, nurturing, and scaling disruptive start-ups and innovations to end global hunger. Based in Munich, Germany, the Innovation Accelerator provides WFP employees and start-ups with funding, hands-on support, and access to WFP’s global operations. Through the Accelerator, WFP is leveraging unprecedented advances in digital innovation – such as mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and blockchain – and new business models to transform the way it serves vulnerable communities across the world. In 2021, Accelerator supported innovations that positively impacted the lives of 9 million people globally. Most recently, the Accelerator runs programs for external partners such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others
More information here: http://innovation.wfp.org and https://youtu.be/OnKkQlRdh2c.
General Information:
Title of Post: Innovative Finance Portfolio Lead
Unit: Innovation Accelerator, Innovation and Knowledge Management Division (INKA)
Country: Germany
Duty Station: Munich
Initial contract duration: 5 months (extendable)
Expected Start Date: 01.06.2023
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)
1. Lead the development and implementation of the Accelerator’s innovative financing models, with a particular focus on building the Accelerator’s and WFP’s impact investing mechanisms to fund impact at scale:
- Drive to the development and implementation of new impact investing mechanisms to attract additional funding towards investable and scalable innovations creating social impact at scale;
- Orchestrate the development, implementation and management of processes and tools for the impact investing mechanisms, including impact measurement and management, reporting and monitoring of investments facilitated by WFP;
- Develop a robust pipeline of investable and scalable innovations in the Accelerator and beyond, covering all aspects of deal origination from market research to investment proposal;
- Foster the development of the Innovative Finance Strategy and its implementation across WFP, as required;
- Conduct landscape mapping to further inform WFP impact investing activities and support relationship building with external investor funding partners to help with fundraising efforts for the WFP funding mechanisms as well as direct capital raising by WFP and the innovations.
2. Drive the adoption of the investment readiness toolkit by the innovations and other WFP Innovation Accelerator teams, to accelerate their path to scale advancing towards Zero Hunger and other Sustainable Development Goals:
- Guide the development of all the necessary investment readiness toolkit, processes and documentation, as appropriate;
- Provide investment readiness expert advice and thought leadership and lead continuous refinement of a toolkit to be used across the Accelerator;
- Provide innovations with capital raising advice to secure most suitable funding either through WFP impact investing mechanisms or external donors and investor partners;
- Share impact investing knowledge and best practices with the Accelerator and other WFP teams to promote and showcase the value of investment readiness activities.
3. Lead a team of Innovative Finance Consultants to reach the goals of the Innovative Finance, Frontier Innovations and Venture Launchpad unit:
- Guide and grow a team of Innovative Finance Consultants and/or other disciplines by establishing priorities, providing coaching and making sure people are engaged in the right value-creation activities;
- Coach innovative finance / impact investing team from ideation to implementation (as applicable), with a focus on innovative finance and impact investing while using methodologies such as human-centered design, lean start-up, project management, venture building, and business modelling;
- Engage in creative leadership methods to foster the right conditions for collective and individual learning and growth;
- Cultivate a collaborative and high-performing innovative finance team culture to help the team thrive in constantly changing environments;
- Conduct performance feedback and development sessions.
4. Support the business growth of the WFP Innovation Accelerator and the Innovative Finance, Frontier Innovations and Venture Launchpad unit to realise external and internal resource mobilisation opportunities:
- Build up a network of public, private and philanthropic donors, multilateral agencies and impact investors to identify and realise resource mobilisation opportunities for innovative finance ventures and instruments;
- Engage and collaborate with all necessary internal and external stakeholders (including WFP programme units, regional bureaux, country and field offices, finance, partnerships, legal) to gather needed input, secure internal support and approval, and launch, develop and scale innovative finance ventures and instruments;
- Actively support the building of strong external partnerships within the Innovative Finance and venture-building ecosystem globally;
- Define and implement outreach campaigns and communication plans to amplify the scope and impact of the innovative finance ventures.
5. Contribute to the strategic and organsational development of the Innovation Accelerator’s strategy deployment and operations:
- Contribute to the establishment of strategic objectives and ensure work plans are in place to meet key results;
- Ensure the building up of capabilities and skills across the unit and that resources are adequately deployed to the right projects and activities;
- Contribute to a high-performing team culture driving results while promoting a collaborative and agile team spirit;
- Create communication and knowledge product management products to amplify the scope and impact of the Acceleration Programs;
- Build up a network of public, private, and philanthropic donors and impact investors to identify opportunities for the Accelerator Programs and its participants, taking an active role in the leading generation, proposal presentation, and negotiation of new contracts and potential agreements.
STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Education: Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration or equivalent. Master’s degree a plus.
Experience: At least 7 years of progressively responsible international experience in a startup leadership role, start-up accelerator, innovations in private businesses, or innovative finance ventures in the humanitarian or international development sector. Experience in innovative finance and in microfinance are a plus as also experience leading a team.
Language Requirements: Fluency in oral and written English is mandatory. Intermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) or Portuguese (one of WFP’s working languages) is a plus.
REQUIRED SOFT SKILLS | WFP COMPETENCIES
- A proven track record building fintech projects and/or driving and implementing innovative finance venture building projects, preferably in an impact, humanitarian, and/or development context.
- Experience in microfinance, crowdfunding platforms, preferably in crowdlending.
- Experience and interest in initiatives focused on financial inclusion, microfinance and resilience programmes.
- Passion and understanding of technology innovations (e.g. digital payments, crypto assets) and business model innovations (e.g. innovative finance, venture capital, impact bonds).
- Experience in innovation project life cycle – from ideation, minimum viable product, testing, prototyping and implementation.
- Worked or led cross-functionally and get things done in an agile and hands-on way.
- Experience working in a large scale-organisation or with a client/in partnership with a large-scale organisation.
- Proven track record of driving projects – effectively delivering impactful elements of projects in a fast-moving environment, ideally for new businesses, new business models, start-ups etc.
- Strong conceptual thinking to develop new strategies & innovative projects.
- Able to interact with a broad range of stakeholders and external audiences with maturity and tact.
- Excellent communication/presentation skills, with the ability to write strategy and partnership documents, develop business plans and write and deliver presentations.
- Collaborative spirit, able to partner with a wide range of people at all levels and across different cultures and to act with credibility and diplomacy.
- Self-motivated and able to work with a high degree of autonomy.
- Sets high-level of ambition for the project and own work to achieve impact for the people we serve.
- Fully committed and motivated to achieve the aims of the UN World Food Programme.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
WFP offers a competitive compensation package which will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.
Please visit the following website for detailed information on working with WFP: http://www.wfp.org
Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
Closing Date: 12 April 2023
VA Reference number: 684945
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Female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply. WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status.
No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.
WFP has a zero-tolerance approach to conduct such as fraud, sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to WFP’s standards of conduct and will therefore undergo rigorous background verification internally or through third parties. Selected candidates will also be required to provide additional information as part of the verification exercise. Misrepresentation of information provided during the recruitment process may lead to disqualification or termination of employment
WFP will not request payment at any stage of the recruitment process including at the offer stage. Any requests for payment should be refused and reported to local law enforcement authorities for appropriate action.
