Venture Builder, Food Chains at Enviu

Job Description

We believe in an inclusive economy that serves people and planet. We build ventures that address social and environmental issues hands-on, and drive market development. In order to achieve this, we’re teaming up with the “best of the best”. We are looking for a full-time Venture Builder to join our East Africa team. The best Venture Builders are former entrepreneurs (or early-stage start-up leaders) that have the ambition to set up social enterprises that contribute to system change. Are you up for this challenge?

Let us introduce ourselves a bit more.

Hi, we’re Enviu

• We are a serial entrepreneur

• We dream big: a future that seems impossible. We take action ourselves and invite others to create the impossible.’

• We are passionate about changing the world for the better and bring an impact-driven entrepreneurial attitude to do so.

• We build social ventures, starting from the issue that needs a solution

• If we think we can do something on our own, we are not dreaming big enough: Together is more.

• We want to support you to discover what you deeply want to do, what you are good at, and what gives meaning to your life.

• We build – measure – learn

• We built 16 social ventures since 2004

• We work with ~35 great people in our offices in Rotterdam, Bangalore, Nairobi & Santiago de Chile.

About the Role

We are developing several businesses in the food value chain in Kenya. Post-harvest losses in the chain are still enormous, reducing these losses impacts farmer income, consumer health and food security in Kenya. Our ambition is to build a professional fruit and vegetable chain for the local market in Kenya. To achieve this we are working on business solutions like cold storage, market linkage, and providing healthy meals to low-income workers. In most cases, developing innovative business models through lean validation in pilots is key. We are looking for a venture builder with entrepreneurial experience who will develop our start-up projects into fully running enterprises at Enviu in Kenya, on a full-time basis.

You will:

• Work on 1 or 2 ventures, side by side with the cofounding entrepreneur of the venture

• Be the one challenging the entrepreneurial team to work as lean as possible. Build -Measure – Learn!

• Be a product manager who is responsible for defining the “market – value proposition – product” triangle

• Quickly prototype and test different business models or assumptions with the target group

• Perform in-depth primary and secondary research and root cause analysis into issues in food value chains

• Set up and structure new companies, including team, operational and accounting back-end, financial compliance, and so on.

• Analyze and improve the operations of an existing startup, together with the entrepreneur

• Plan and budget for your project(s)

• Analyse and control of revenues, costs and margin.

• Raise funds (both grants and equity); identify funders, financial modelling, prepare pitch deck, investor pitches and due diligence processes.

• Build key partnerships, with both large and small organizations

• Get the work of Enviu EA out there, on events, by building a network and sharing our work on the website

• Collaborate with the Dutch team. The job will include traveling to the Netherlands (once / twice a year).

You’d be perfect for the role if you have:

• A proven track record of at least 8 years working experience, out of which at least three years as entrepreneur, co-founder of a start-up or part of the management team of a company, preferably as social entrepreneur;

• Passion for and experience in the fields of agritech, food logistics, lean operation and the food value chain in Kenya;

• Experience with working with smallholder farmers;

• A relevant network;

• The right attitude to work with people with all kind of backgrounds, from small farmers to investors or CEOs of multinationals;

• Led teams of 10+ people;

• Passion for social entrepreneurship;

• Empathy and are inquisitive;

• A hands-on, can-do approach;

• A Bachelor’s degree at a reputed institute;

• Successful track record in multi-stakeholder project management;

• Experience in building partnerships and fundraising with commercial partners (investors, corporate, NGO, Government);

• Excellent leadership and communication skills;

• Substantial experience with Lean Startup and Human Centric Design methodologies;

Furthermore, the ideal candidate is a people manager, fluent in English, can work independently and has a good sense of humour. Although regular traveling is part of the job, the job will be performed in Nairobi, Kenya. Candidates who do not live in Kenya will not be considered.