Enterprise Investment Fund Coordinator at Mercy Corps

Program / Department Summary

• The Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity (RRA) is a five-year, $30 million, Feed the Future initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Mercy Corps is the prime implementer and is in partnership with Save the Children International (SCI) and International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC).
• The goal of the RRA is to facilitate and protect economic recovery and growth in vulnerable, conflict-affected areas and sustainably move people out of chronic vulnerability and poverty via expanded opportunities. The purpose of Rural Resilience Activity’s Enterprise Innovation Fund is to catalyse new investments in viable economic opportunities (market systems, livelihoods, agribusiness, and employment) through grants that stimulate, rather than distort market development and avoid exacerbating conflict dynamics.
• The Enterprise Investment Fund Manager is responsible for the overall leadership and management of the facility including developing procedures, regulations, and best practices for the establishment of the fund mechanism. The Enterprise Investment Fund Manager will lead establishment of processes including fund management manual.
• The Enterprise Investment Fund Manager is responsible for coordinating with the program team in designing call for proposals, selection of the most viable investment ideas and its execution. Working closely with Mercy Corps Nigeria finance and subaward/compliance team, the Enterprise Investment Fund Manager is responsible for leading the monitoring of grant performance and providing timely relevant reports to ensure that financial resources are used effectively and efficiently.
• The Enterprise Investment Fund Manager is guided by the principles of transparent and competitive allocation of funds using a market systems development approach in combination with other technical approaches such as resilience, etc., strict management guidelines, and support for public, private or community actors and organizations of all sizes.

General Position Summary

• Working directly under the supervision of the Enterprise Investment Fund Manager, the Enterprise Investment Fund Coordinator will provide full time and dedicated support to the management of Rural Resilience Activity’s Enterprise Investment Fund while adhering to compliance procedures related to finance, match/cost share management and documenting, sub-awards, etc.
• The Enterprise Investment Fund Coordinator in close coordination with the Enterprise Investment Fund Manager, will be primarily responsible for securing the required cost leverage / match reports and support documentation from partners (subaward recipients), coordinating grant processes from initiation to closeout in close collaboration with partners, programs, finance and subawards/compliance teams, building capacity of partners in areas around risk management and business planning and development, reviewing and analysing match / cost share financial records, coordinating timely match reporting and files archiving, monitoring of sub grants and ensuring adequate internal controls are in place to mitigate risks in compliance with laws, regulations, donor requirements and Mercy Corps policies and procedures all through the program cycle.

Essential Job Responsibilities

• Work closely with the project team to conduct research and assessments to identify potential private sector, public and community managed entities for partnership, including prioritizing the identification of under-represented groups such as women and youth.
• Organize and conduct multi-stakeholder platforms to disseminate Rural Resilience Project’s Investment Fund opportunities to potential partners.
• Lead the coaching and mentoring of shortlisted subaward recipients in areas around business planning and risk management, financial modeling, and cash flow planning.
• Support the Enterprise Investment Fund Manager in administering a transparent and competitive mechanism for the Investment Fund in compliance with Mercy Corps and USAID policies and procedures including developing RFAs, evaluating applicant eligibility, concept notes, full applications, issuing status notices to applicants, liaising with other departments to ensure effective coordination among the relevant units and ensuring all components of the Investment Fund work together to meet program goals.
• Support the Investment Fund Manager to set up filing and record keeping systems to ensure all grant documents are properly filed, including financial and program reports as articulated in the Rural Resilience Activity’s Innovation Fund and Mercy Corps Sub-Awards Financial Management Policy.
• Support the Investment Fund Manager to develop tracking systems including programmatic monitoring plans to ensure all documentation is appropriately disseminated and managed while supporting in-person verification for product and services, producing regular programmatic monitoring visit reports and following up for resolution as assigned.
• Support the Investment Fund Manager through the entire process of carrying out programmatic due diligence on companies and potential partners including conducting organizational and business capacity assessments and supporting potential partners to develop and own action plans that identify areas of improvement for partners to work on and for inclusion in their implementation plans.
• Liaise with the program, finance and sub-awards teams to provide support on strengthening partner skills in financial management around sub-grant financial procedures, program/financial reporting and other fund administration processes.
• Support the Investment Fund Manager in reviewing sub-award applicants’ budgets and budget narratives for completeness, cost realism and compliance to USAID regulations, including ensuring all components of the Investment fund are compliant with USAID and MC regulations, all sub-grantees are complying with the procedures in the RRA Innovation Fund Manual and Mercy Corps Sub-Awards Financial Management Policy, and that the annexes are fully utilized.
• Support the Investment Fund Manager in providing overall management for all administrative issues related to the investment fund including monitoring as well as tracking financial and program reports.
• Support the Investment Fund Manager to propose strategies for building resilience and improving market system performance, including making business strategies more inclusive and beneficial to enterprise productivity through the Investment Fund.
• Support the development of learning platforms related to innovation and investment to be utilized throughout the life of program.
• Understand the key elements of a successful investment, and support the Investment Fund Manager to develop tactical and strategic plans for the fund including ensuring that the investment fund supports activities across the key sectors that the project is targeting and does not crowd out financial markets and actors, rather helps them to flourish.
• Support MC Nigeria/Global Sub-Awards team in reviewing drafted sub-award agreements for additional accuracy.

People Management:

• Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence.
• Promote accountability, communicate expectations and provide constructive feedback via regular performance reviews.
• Supervise and orient new team members where applicable.
• Provide team members and sub-awardees with information, tools and other resources to improve performance and reach objectives.
• Contribute to country team-building efforts, help team members identify problem-solving options and ensure the integration of all team members and relevant MC departments into relevant decision-making processes

Influence and Representation:

• Support, identify, build and manage collaborative partnerships with consortium partners, sub-grantees, donors, local governments and other stakeholders.
• Communicate effectively and build consensus to ensure overall project targets and donor obligations are met.

Security:

• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership.
• Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.

Organizational Learning:

• As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

Accountability to Beneficiaries:

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Investment Fund Interns on Rural Resilience Activity and other Mercy Corps Sub-awards and Compliance Interns

Accountability:

• Reports Directly to: Enterprise Investment Fund Manager
• Works Directly with: Subawards and Rural Resilience Activity Program Teams including Advisors, Specialists and Coordinators; Operations and Finance teams in Abuja and Field offices including Rural Resilience Activity Senior Operations and Procurement Officers in field offices, Finance Director in Abuja and assignees in field offices; Sub-Award Manager and assignees in Abuja; as well as Reporting & Communication teams in Abuja.

Knowledge and Experience

• Masters’ degree or equivalent in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or Business Administration, or Bachelors’ degree with 7 years of relevant work experience.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in enterprise development; investment management; impact investments and working in partnership with private sector actors, civil society organizations and public sector ministries, departments and agencies.
• Good understanding of facilitation approaches including coaching, relationship building, communicating, open and willing to work on new initiatives
• S/he should also have basic understanding of the concept of triple line business modeling (commercial, social and environment impact models) and concepts around inclusive business models.
• Must have good understanding of impact investment, planning and analysis, marketing strategy development, distribution of products to the last mile consumers and general business system operations management.
• 3-5 years of sub-award management on international donor-funded programs e.g. USAID, DFID, EU, with USAID program experience being a significant advantage and preferred.
• Demonstrated competency with computerized G-Suite and Microsoft Office applications.
• Proven skills in organizational and business capacity assessments, strategic planning, and business development including developing financial models and business plans, as well as proven practical and theoretical understanding of the project management cycle.
• Demonstrated experience and ability to professionally and appropriately represent the organization and negotiate and defend Mercy Corps’ interests with a diverse range of international and local organizations and other groups.
• Excellent negotiation, consensus building, verbal and written communication, organizational and prioritization skills, ability to multi-task, support and/or fill multiple positions at one time, and work comfortably with an ethnically diverse staff in a very sensitive environment.
• Demonstrated attention to detail and ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work both independent of supervision and cooperatively with team members.
• Fluency in spoken and written English required.
• Knowledge of Hausa and other local dialects such as Fulfulde and Kanuri is an advantage.

Success Factors:

• The successful candidate will be capable of multi-tasking, rapid decision-making, have initiative, drive and a lot of energy, as well as high emotional intelligence, constructive mentoring skills and proven experience with capacity building. S/he will be committed to long-term program sustainability and the delivery of high-impact activities at the community level. Successful Mercy Corps team members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and challenging environments, and make effective written and verbal communication a priority.
• In particular, the successful candidate will be willing to travel to locations within Borno, Adamawa, Yobe and Gombe States and in the LGAs (Local Government Areas) outside the state capitals according to the needs of the Mercy Corps program. This will mean sometimes staying and working in stressful environments with very basic living conditions, strictly following security protocols at all times and sometimes working long and irregular hours.
• Mercy Corps team members represent the agency both during and outside work hours.
• Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC's policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.