Access to Market Lead at Pan Atlantic University

Role Overview

• The Access to Market Lead designs and manages all market access interventions within NiWEMA, to strengthen the capacity, market access resilience, and growth potential of female-led micro and small enterprises across Nigeria, while contributing to the creation of 975,000 jobs nationwide over five years.
• The role operates across two participation models: individual business participants and sector-based clusters in fashion, food, agriculture, and other industries.
• The cluster model creates distinct opportunities including collective procurement, group market certification, shared supply chain linkages, and sector-specific buyer relationships that require a differentiated strategy from individual market access pathways.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and lead a dual-pathway market access strategy that addresses both individual business participants and sector-based clusters, developing tailored approaches for each.
• Develop collective market access pathways for sector clusters including group supply agreements, cooperative selling arrangements, shared logistics, and cluster-level buyer negotiations in fashion, food, agriculture, and other sectors.
• Build and manage relationships with market actors, corporate buyers, e-commerce platforms, retail chains, food processors, fashion aggregators, agricultural off-takers, trade associations, and government procurement bodies, relevant to both individual and cluster participants.
• Design and deliver market access content for both the LMS-based online curriculum and physical training sessions, ensuring relevance to participants' specific sectors.
• Lead the organisation of market linkage events, trade fairs, buyer-seller sessions, and sector-specific market exposure activities for both individual and cluster participants.
• Supervise and provide technical guidance to the Access to Market Support Officer.
• Monitor and report on market access outcomes, disaggregated by delivery modality, participation model, and sector cluster.
• Identify and address systemic market access barriers facing young women entrepreneurs in target sectors, integrating practical solutions into programme delivery.
• Collaborate with the Gender Lead to ensure market access strategies are gender-responsive and account for the specific power dynamics women face in sector markets.
• Contribute to programme reports, case studies, and impact documentation related to market access outcomes.
• Any other related task on the engagement.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Economics, Marketing, Development Studies, or a related field. Master's degree is an added advantage.
• Minimum of 8 years' experience in market development, enterprise support, value chain development, or private sector development with a focus on micro and small enterprises.
• Demonstrated experience working with sector-based clusters or value chains in at least one of the following: fashion/textiles, food processing/agri-food, or agriculture.
• Experience designing market access training for both online and in-person delivery.
• Strong network of market actors, buyers, and commercial partners across relevant sectors.
• Prior experience on women's economic empowerment programmes is strongly preferred.

Key Competencies:

• Sector-based value chain and market systems analysis
• Cluster and collective market access strategy
• Buyer and commercial partner relationship management
• Dual-modality training design and facilitation
• Gender-responsive market development