Director – Partnerships at HCS Affiliates Group

• Our Client is a leading development finance organization that supports businesses in innovating, creating jobs, and leveraging investments to build resilience and sustainable incomes for rural and marginalized communities in Africa.
• They aim to bridge the investment gap between early-stage enterprises and business maturity for entrepreneurs serving the poorest communities. Through various financing instruments, we provide patient capital to new and innovative business models in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa. To supplement finance, they also offer advisory services, investment support, and knowledge and insights.
• We seek to recruit on their behalf a dynamic, proactive, and results-oriented Director of Partnerships, with an affinity for impact investing and willing to excel in a highly entrepreneurial environment.
• Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer, the incumbent will be a member of the Executive Committee with primary responsibility to lead in partnerships development and resource mobilization, implementation of the company’s refreshed strategy (2021- 2025), and providing oversight of the gender function. 
• The role requires a good understanding of private sector development in sub-Saharan Africa. The role will be based in Nairobi with occasional travel in the regions and globally.

Key Responsibilities

Partnerships Development – 70%

• Lead the identification, cultivation, and solicitation of funding partners including public donors, foundations, high-net-worth individuals, and other funding sources to meet annual fundraising targets.
• Lead the organization’s strategy for creating new and renewed business with public and private sector donors (including bilateral, multilateral, and foundation donors).
• Secure bilateral investment and establish targets that secure resources for the organization’s strategy and diversification of the program portfolio.
• Has overall responsibility for ensuring the proposal process is aligned to internal processes, and that proposal development is proactive and anticipatory.
• Ensure effective management of existing relationships and put in place processes and tools for quality assurance on donor reporting and engagement.
• Championing new opportunities across the organization, working collaboratively to identify opportunities in the Agribusinesses-Energy Nexus, remove key barriers, and enable innovation to build sustainable products.

Gender – 20%

• Mainstream the implementation and integration of organization’s Gender Strategy including working closely with teams across to ensure that the organization’s gender lens investing offering is fully embedded across all processes, systems, and governance documents; ensure the effective roll out of key products developed by the team including those related to training and capacity building, tools; and manage internal;/external communications.
• Provide thought partnership and leadership to internal working groups to ensure that gender mainstreaming initiatives are aligned with Gender Lens Investing agenda. 
• Advise and collaborate with the Portfolio, Strategy, and Communication teams to integrate gender across the program implementation cycle, and to advance the organization’s overall gender target. 
• Lead on the generation of gender-related insights and learning from the company’s portfolio of work, assuring a robust dissemination framework for.
• Establish credibility with other actors driving gender equality, or with investors targeting the SME segment with the aim of attracting capital for gender-related initiatives and enhancing the positioning of the organization as the go-to institution for women's economic empowerment in Africa.
• Stand as a key relationship partner for the gender lens investing ecosystem of funders, like-minded institutions, and partners – and represent the organization in gender-related forums.

Knowledge and Insights – 10%

• Lead the design and implementation of a comprehensive knowledge management framework to capture, store, and share critical organizational knowledge across teams.
• Equip the institution with the tools and capacity to effectively share learnings from its activities internally and with the broader ecosystem.
• Ensure the generation and dissemination of evidence to demonstrate the outcomes and impacts of the organization’s work.
• Identify resources and networks that can be accessed for knowledge building.

Required qualifications, experience and attributes.

• 12+ years of work experience in a senior partnership’s development and fundraising role. This should include a track record of initiating, leading, and closing negotiations (through strategic alliances or otherwise with private and public sector parties) that total at least USD 200m in the past five years for a not-for-profit institution, preferably with operations in Africa.
• Demonstrated experience in coordinating and supporting the development of proposals/concept notes.
• Experience with the triple nexus of climate, gender, and fragility.
• Working knowledge of Agri-business, and Renewable Energy sectors.
• Excellent strategy acumen coupled with experience in leading strategy, working with C-suite leaders and the Board.
• Excellent partnerships & grants management skills and ability to build relationships with development partners, governments, and private sectors.
• Interest and aptitude in prospecting, cultivating, and managing new donors.
• Exceptional planning and analytical skills, ability to discern patterns and insights from research an internal/external data and focus on critical business issues.
• A people leader who thrives in inspiring and collaborating with others.
• High degree of initiative and energy, flexibility, teamwork, and attention to detail.
• Excellent communication (written and spoken) and interpersonal skills including strong work ethic, impeccable integrity, and judgment.
• Working knowledge of French will be an added advantage.