Job Openings at VisionSpring

• The Global Lead collaborates with country quality and customer experience leads and VAP team members across programs and promotes the adoption of best practices. The Global Lead is a member of VisionSpring's Global Program Office and reports to the Global Senior Lead of Program Experience & Quality (based in India).

About you

• Mission-driven, entrepreneurial leader. You build a mission-driven unit to support the delivery of the organization's long-term outcomes. You foster ideation, iteration, and learning.
• Curious and passionate about quality standards. You love understanding the quality of our services and practices and are passionate about further improving quality standards on a global scale.
• Inclusive player-coach. You mentor and develop people. In a diverse, growth-stage organization you create opportunities for participation and increased responsibility. You model vulnerability and accountability and roll up your sleeves to deliver when needed.
• You are focused on continuous process improvement, adoption of best practices, and retention of clients and customers through influencing and exceptional service standards delivered through market teams. You are motivated to transform local and national processes and protocols into scalable approaches that can be adjusted to reflect country contexts but ensure similar quality and client experience across the board.
• You will play a pivotal role in ensuring the sustainability of the various programs running across countries and simplifying the processes to make them easily adaptable.
• You are well-versed in Client-centric metrics, Retention metrics, Engagement metrics, Adoption metrics, and Customer feedback metrics.
• You are accustomed to being in a multi-programmatic and multi-cultural high-growth environment in a rapidly growing organization. You are self-motivated and strategic in your approach to building and stewarding relationships.
• Willingness to travel across markets and provide ground-level support to teams.

What you'll do

Harmonization of approaches

• Work together with program teams to implement effective monitoring of program quality and client experience.
• Ensure adherence to Standard Operating Procedures in place for relevant programs across VS countries, roll out assessment methods, such that we can make controls/checks of the quality for our teams and implementing partners. This might need to be rolled out by a third party.
• Client experience monitoring includes process monitoring, client feedback on their experience of our services, the choice of eyeglasses we offer, and their glasses wearing habits.
• Based on experience and evidence from the field, suggest effective ways or innovations to achieve greater quality and client experience

Key areas of Quality Assurance:

• Ensure quality assurance is actively being measured. Some of the key measurements and indicators that will need to be monitored.
• Measure donors/CSRs satisfaction through Net Promoter Score (NPS) and suggest ways to improve the score.
• Participant experience monitoring includes participant feedback on their experience of our services, the choice of glasses we offer, and their glasses wearing habits.
• Support in adapting to the set guidelines for digital field level data capture and enhance compliance. - Initial capture as per the protocols, user experience, and supporting in correct field level data collection.
• Drive interventions that will raise program quality and experience– standardizing processes across all project sites.
• Support to improve customer satisfaction scores.
• Effectively use the communication materials/ medium to improve client awareness. Design mechanisms to gather follow-up feedback from customers and verify key quality indicators, amongst other glasses wearing behavior.
• Supporting roll out and adoption of DigitEYES and other digital applications in relevant markets.

Innovation

• In line with our value of constantly adapt and relentlessly improve, you will continuously identify and perpetuate strong practices and identify pain points and help surface for the organization to evolve.
• Support opportunities for innovation within quality assurance and client experience.

Capacity building and support

• Provide continuous support to improve the quality of our programs and the client experience in all of our countries.
• Support the recruitment, management, and development of team members and motivate them to deliver the highest quality of services.
• Work with program teams to develop an understanding of the importance of quality assurance and client experience and ensure team members have easy access to the same.
• Train team members on quality assurance tools, processes, and systems in collaboration with the head of the training/learning department where relevant in coordination with the training team
• Contribute to program knowledge management.

As quality assurance and client experience is a domain that is constantly evolving, you will be flexible to adapt potentially additional tasks in line with the overall goal of ensuring quality assurance and client experience.

Requirements

• Minimum of 5 years of progressive experience in supportive supervision and quality assurance
• Bachelor’s degree in public health, social science, statistics, development studies, or other relevant field.
• Minimum of 2 years of team and/or project leadership experience.
• Superior skills using MS Excel and overall strong competency using MS Office applications.
• Extraordinary follow-through, attention to detail and deadlines, and a strong personal sense of accountability.
• Fluency in English, written and spoken.
• Ability to travel 40% of time. Willingness to travel internationally and work in locations with limited infrastructure.
• Preferred experience and skills: (1) Knowing VS process and practices (2) Experience working in sub-Saharan Africa, India, Bangladesh, and/or Vietnam; (3) Working in a high-growth or start-up environment; (4) Working in an international organization operating in low- and middle-income countries.

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• This role is a contract-based, full-time position for the initial period of one year. As with other contractors with whom we have worked for many years, we expect the successful candidates to be willing to be long-term contractors for VisionSpring.

ABOUT YOU

• You are an entrepreneur at heart and want to build a socially oriented business. The prospect of becoming an expert in the optics industry excites you.
• You are accustomed to being a top performer in a high-growth environment. Achieving targets fills you with a sense of drive and satisfaction.
• You are self-motivated and deliver excellent results without the daily direct supervision of an on-site manager.
• You are adept at business-to-business and institutional sales and fully understand the sales management cycle. You are particularly adept at wholesale selling and have a knack for expanding the distribution of physical products.
• You are strategic in your approach to new business, actively networking and doing research to identify new partners and nurture relationships. You are constantly seeking new and creative ways to reach your target market and go above and beyond what is required to do it.
• You have the experience, maturity, and confidence, as well as the communication skills, to interact with people in senior positions. You can get others excited about the possibilities that are unlocked by working with VisionSpring.
• You have a special talent for negotiating with partners for a win-win closure of deals.

ABOUT US

• We are creating access to affordable eyewear, everywhere. Clear vision creates opportunities for increased learning, work, safety, civic participation, and quality of life.
• As a social enterprise, social change motivates us first. Our focus on sales and revenue targets serves and advances our mission objective—to increase functioning, productivity, and income earning potential for our low-income consumers by correcting refractive error with eyeglasses.
• We are working to transform the systemic dysfunction of an optical market that has failed to deliver eyeglasses—a 700-year-old technology—to 2.5 billion consumers in need of vision correction, most of whom live on less than $4 a day.
• We serve low-income consumers, not as beneficiaries but as customers. Our customers expect a high-quality and affordable product, and they will spend limited discretionary income for the immediate and tangible benefits of vision correction.
• By selling eyeglasses, we awaken new demand and seed a viable market. By selling new eyeglasses we are able to serve four times as many people per dollar input than the alternative of donating recycled ones. To efficiently scale, we must deliver each new unit with lower cost.
• We run our business on both sales metrics and social impact measures. We exploit a range of organizational forms and practices to get the job done.
• We believe in scaling our impact, not our organization. We are a lean team of doers.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

New Business Development

• Conduct research, network, and cold-call to pro-actively identify and pursue new opportunities to grow partnerships with eye hospitals, clinics, and other health service providers; assist them in introducing or expanding their optical services.
• Contact and stimulate engagement with known potential partners; transform them into satisfied customers.
• Meet and surpass monthly, quarterly, and annual sales targets by winning new and repeat orders.
• Grow and manage the channel partner network. Use your creativity to find new paths, and expand existing ones, to bring eyeglasses to our target population.
• Engage and consistently follow up with existing and new accounts, deliver the highest levels of customer service.
• Faithfully and accurately enter all sales activity—calls, conversations, emails, meetings, WhatsApp, SMS, etc.—into Salesforce, a customer relations management (CRM) system provided by VisionSpring.
• Help to represent VisionSpring at local industry forums, peer groups, market development events, seminars, conferences, etc.

Account Management

• Service and manage assigned accounts. Maintain existing close relationships and assure that we are building new relationships that will last.
• Strengthen relationships with all key opinion makers and stakeholders.
• Periodically affirm that we are reaching our target population by reporting customer data and KPIs.
• Regularly follow up with customers for pre- and post-sale documentation and payments.
• Solicit feedback and gather testimonials from customers so that their words can inform our marketing collateral.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree
• 3 to 5 years of professional experience in business-to-business and institutional sales.
• Willingness to travel up to 50% of the time within the country.
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills in English and any other local languages.
• Experience creating and delivering sales presentations using PowerPoint slide decks.
• Computer software skills, especially Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Priority consideration will be given to candidates with these areas of experience and assets: institutional sales within the healthcare or pharmaceutical sectors; knowledge of vision care and/or optical services; comfort using Salesforce or another CRM; existing rolodex of contacts in healthcare/pharma/vision care sectors; and/or personal vehicle.

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• The Global Senior Optometrist collaborates with country quality and customer experience leads and Vision Access Program team members as well as with the Global Senior Lead, Program Experience and Quality. The Global Senior Optometrist works hand in hand with the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning unit to ground best practices in evidence. The Global Senior Optometrist is a member of VisionSpring’s Global Program Office and reports to the Global Vice President of Programs (based in Accra, Ghana). 

About You

• Mission-driven, entrepreneurial leader. You build a mission-driven unit to support the delivery of the organization’s long-term outcomes, widening our outreach. You foster ideation, iteration, creativity and learning.
• Passionate about quality standards and clinical techniques. You love understanding the quality of our services and practices and are passionate to further improve quality standards of the clinical skill and procedures on a global scale. 
• Customer centric. You center program-quality around defined value propositions, customer experience, and feedback. 
• Scaling champion. You are motivated to transform local and national processes and protocols into scalable approaches that can be adjusted to reflect country contexts but ensure similar quality and client experience across the board. 
• Inclusive player-coach. You mentor and develop people. In a diverse, growth-stage organization you create opportunities for participation and increased responsibility. You model vulnerability and accountability, and roll-up your sleeves to deliver when and where needed. 
• Public health mindset. You believe that solutions should be simple and scalable and should lead to a paradigm shift in the lives of millions globally. 

What You'll Do 

Global program clinical quality assurance and client centered strategy

•  Set global standards for optometrists and other clinical staff as well as support the development and roll out of standard operating procedures and trainings for channels without clinical staff like the pharmacy channel and Reading Glasses for Improved Livelihoods, based on the Assisted Technology.  
• Support the development and implementation of VisionSpring’s global program quality in terms of clinical precision and up to date with prevailing market practices as well as align to the client centered strategy and related policies, guidelines, processes, and standard procedures, aligned with organizational strategic priorities and targeted outcomes.
• Develop and implement effective monitoring of program quality and client experience. 

Harmonization of approaches

• Develop and endorse Standard Operating Procedures in place for relevant program elements across VisionSpring countries, this will include amongst others standardization throughout our camps with slight adaptations to accommodate for context variations.
• Identifying areas for improvement in customer care, developing and implementing plans to address those issues, and monitoring the effectiveness of those plans, keeping in view the nature and scope of VisionSpring work.
• Compliance with regulations and standards: Ensuring our practices adhere to all relevant healthcare regulations and quality standards set by various regulatory bodies.
• Reviewing clinical data and customer feedback to assess the quality of care provided by individual on ground optometrists. 
• Helping optometrists improve their performance through feedback, coaching, and mentoring. Presenting data and reports on quality measures to stakeholders and providing clear and concise explanations of the findings.
• Staying up-to-date on the latest quality improvement methodologies and best practices and use them for enhancing visionspring programs. 
• Develop and implement supportive supervision check list, such that we can make controls/checks of the quality for our own teams and implementing partners. This might need to be rolled out by a third party. 
• Client experience monitoring, this includes process monitoring, client feedback on counselling, choice and wearing habits.
• Based on experience and evidence from the field, suggest effective ways or innovations to achieve greater quality and client experience.
• Generate and recommend technical insights that could help in suggesting policy and process changes to policymakers and thus catalyze the access to clear vision for all. 
• Support piloting any new technology and tools, new glasses, new eye testing materials, new charts with a quality assurance lens in support with Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning. 
• Implement quality assurance protocols to ensure the delivery of high-standard eyecare services.
• Conduct regular assessments and audits of optometry operations to identify areas for improvement.
• Provide supportive supervision to optometry staff, offering guidance and training to maintain quality standards.
• Ensure quality assurance is actively being measured. 

Capacity building and support

•  Provide leadership and guidance to all optometrists and vision technical staff; motivate and coach clinical team members; ensure that all team members operate with a high degree of accountability and professionalism. 
• Provide continuous support to improve the quality of our programs and the client experience in all of our markets.
• Support the recruitment, management, and development of (clinical) team members and motivate them to deliver the highest quality of services. 
• Ensure team members have easy access and understanding of VisionSpring’s quality assurance tools, processes and systems. 
• Train team members on quality assurance tools, processes and systems in collaboration with the head of the training/learning department where relevant.
• Work with program teams to develop understanding of the importance of quality assurance and client experience.
• Contribute to program knowledge management.

Fundraising

• Support future project design by contributing to proposals ensuring that quality assurance and client experience are at the heart of our interventions.

As quality assurance and client experience is a domain that is constantly evolving, you will be flexible to adapt potentially additional tasks in line with the overall goal of ensuring quality assurance and client experience. 

Requirements

• Degree in Optometry from a recognized university.
• At least 5 years of relevant professional experience in optometry with sound knowledge of and experience in refraction (subjective and objective), retinoscopy, slit lamp examination, and contact lens fitting.
• Minimum of 3 years of progressive program management experience
• Experience in technical support and coaching of partners and/or team members.
• Exposure to public health and experience of working on policies/solutions that have created social impact at scale.
• Ability to positively influence people without having line management relationship.
• Strong commitment to respectful collaboration with multi-lingual team members from diverse backgrounds.
• Fluency in English, written and spoken.
• Ability to travel 30% of the time. Willingness to travel internationally and work in locations with limited infrastructure.
• Preferred experience and skills: (1) Experience working in sub-Saharan Africa, India, Bangladesh; (2) Working in a high-growth or start-up environment; (3) Working in an international organization operating in low- and middle-income countries. (4) Master’s degree in health management/public health, or commensurate work experience in related to public health programming.