Specialist, Advisory Services, Africa at Women's World Banking

Reports to: Manager, Advisory Services
Classification: Full-time
Start Date: Immediate

Summary

• Women’s World Banking is seeking an innovative, energetic and multifaceted Specialist to support strategic goals of advancing women’s financial inclusion Africa.
• The Specialist will support the development and implementation of financial solution designs including ideation, prototyping and user testing.
• The individual will play a key role in building Women’s World Banking’s business and working on projects within Africa, with a focus on Nigeria.

Responsibilities

• You will be responsible for supporting the Manager with partner engagements, project execution, and providing advisory services to enable partners to effectively reach and serve low-income women with relevant financial services and products.
• You will work in teams of typically 3 – 5 people, playing an active role in all aspects of the partner engagement, with focus in designing effective and commercially viable solutions, and developing and communicating recommendations for rollout to scale the impact of the solutions.
• You will work on multiple engagements concurrently and with colleagues across various functions within Women’s World Banking.

You will:

• Support design development processes from customer behavioural lens – from customer research to ideation, solutions development, prototyping, workshop for partners, user testing and pilot; methodologies to develop highly effective design solutions to drive impact and scale
• Play an active role in technical and field work (in a project management based activities) to execute project activities, which includes supporting customer research, gathering and analyzing client-partner background information, direct engagement with target segment to gather feedback, gathering market intelligence on current market trends, including project implementation monitoring; synthesizing key learnings to enhance current and future project execution
• Analyze and interpret the research findings and reports from different research methodologies, and use it for solutions development;
• Engage in strategic and creative problem-solving;
• Develop project deliverables, project monitoring and presentations;
• Develop a strong understanding of the context of financial inclusion in Nigeria and, combined with own experience and perspectives to provide support in developing solutions that can increase women’s financial

Within the first 75 days:

• Demonstrate Women’s World Banking’s values – Think Big, Own and Commit to It, Smarter Together;
• Learn and comprehend Women’s World Banking’s business model;
• Fully integrate into the Advisory Services team;
• Build a strong working relationship across functional teams;
• Demonstrate your ability to support project work in the Africa advisory portfolio

Required Qualifications

• Undergraduate Degree, preferably Master Degree, in Business Management, Behavioral Science, Psychology, Finance, Economic, Development Studies or related fields;
• 5 – 7 years of work experience in Fintech/digital financial services, banking or financial services, consulting (for financial services), preferably in product/strategy/user experience/business  design and development for financial services;
• Demonstrated skills in facilitating stakeholder sessions and managing multiple stakeholders
• Strong analytical skills
• Excellent verbal, written and presentation skills;
• Demonstrated strong project management skills;
• Demonstrated ability to manage responsibility with integrity and tact;
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, and ability to work with remote teams;
• Willingness to learn and show adaptability, as well as Good team player;
• Willingness to travel extensively within Africa
• Proficiency in using MS Office tools especially Word, Excel, PowerPoint;
• Working knowledge of graphic design software such as Adobe Creative Suite and proficiency with common collaboration tools such as Mural & Miro is an advantage
• Fluency in English is a must;

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working with low-income populations in emerging markets and/or experience with women’s economic and empowerment issues;
• Experience in savings, credit, insurance, digital financial services will be valued;
• Demonstrated skills in human-centered design and/or behavioural design, as well as facilitating design ideation, prototyping and user testing sessions;
• Field work and research experience
• Track record of superior creativity and problem-solving abilities;
• Demonstrated ability to execute and successfully achieve objectives in a dynamic, fast-paced environment with aggressive timeline;
• International work experience

You should apply to this Position if:

• You are passionate about the power of financial services to change lives, and understand what it takes to reach low-income women where they live and
• You have working experience in financial services; specifically/preferably focus on financial inclusion and emerging
• You are well versed in design approaches and methodologies, such as human-centered design, behavioural design, and are able to apply them effectively to develop solutions that represent the needs and voice of women customers.
• You are able to think strategically, and use a spectrum of human-centered design or design thinking methodologies to develop highly effective design solutions to drive impact and
• You are driven to find solutions to “making it work” and have a “yes and” mindset when it comes to teamwork and
• You are organized and can manage projects and multiple stakeholders, able to work through ambiguity and devise strategies to ensure project progress.

Benefits
We offer comprehensive benefits including:

• Competitive salary & top tier benefits
• 15+ paid time off days in addition to paid sick days and holidays
• Company closes for two paid Mental Health and Rejuvenation Weeks per year (July & December)
• 401(k) with employer match / pension contributions where applicable
• Company paid professional development opportunities
• Flexible work options available, including work from home options (outside of fieldwork).