Venture Builder, BFA Global
About us
BFA Global is an impact innovation firm that combines research, advisory, venture building, and investment expertise to build a more inclusive, equitable, and resilient future for underserved people and the planet. We partner with leading public, private, and philanthropic organizations, both global and local, to catalyze innovation ecosystems for impact across emerging markets.
About Jobtech Alliance
The Jobtech Alliance, launched in late 2021, is a pioneering initiative focused on inclusive jobtech in Africa. Our goal is to support digital platforms that connect individuals to work opportunities, including gig-matching platforms, job-matching services, and e-commerce marketplaces. Through two main workstreams, we aim to create an enabling environment for entrepreneurs to build platforms that provide quality livelihoods. This involves expanding the sector’s knowledge base through research, community-building, and highlighting its significance. Simultaneously, we work to enhance funding by curating investors, fostering discussions on sector financing, and addressing critical policy and infrastructure needs.
The Jobtech Alliance has a grant portfolio that allows us to conduct various acceleration activities with jobtech start-ups. We partner with jobtech start-ups across 10 African markets to support strategy, product, and operational innovations that make their services more viable, scalable, inclusive, and/or deliver better-quality jobs for their users. The program deploys a range of support to start-ups, including technical assistance, project delivery support, grant capital, and connections to investors and other partners.
About the Role
The role of venture builders has two essential functions: accelerating jobtech startups and strengthening the ecosystem that supports them. This involves directly working with startups to drive their growth, gathering insights through research to shape the support strategy, sharing knowledge and learnings with the broader ecosystem, and engaging with stakeholders to foster business growth.
What you’ll do
As a Venture Builder at BFA Global, we seek someone with the following capabilities:
- Lead venture building (VB) engagements for startups as part of BFA Global. This includes:
- Running the VB engagement from beginning to end
- Building strong relationships with the startups in the programs,
- Scoping the support activities that would accelerate their journey to Product-Market Fit,
- Coordinating with relevant specialists to deliver on the scope of work,
- Providing hands-on expertise and specialist support when needed,
- Ensuring the startup is fully satisfied with the support offered and provides the programs with a high NPS while remaining within the venture-building engagement budget.
- Facilitate connections between ventures and potential partners, funders, and industry experts to strengthen their networks.
- Engage with ecosystem stakeholders as part of Jobtech Alliance, this includes:
- Foster relationships with key stakeholders, including investors, donors, and ecosystem enablers, to strengthen the jobtech sector.
- Represent Jobtech Alliance at industry events, conferences, and forums, advocating for inclusive job creation and venture-building approaches.
- Develop blogs, case studies, and knowledge-sharing resources based on learnings from venture engagements
- Contribute to thought leadership by identifying innovative approaches and trends in venture building for jobtech
- Identifying areas of synergy with investors who might be interested in investing in portfolio startups,
- Gathering any investor and ecosystem recommendations for startups that Jobtech Alliance can consider as candidates for future cohorts.
Qualifications & Requirements:
- 5+ years of experience working as a venture builder at an accelerator, investment fund, or as part of a fast-growing startup team
- Advanced degree in Business, Finance, Engineering or equivalent. MBAs are also a plus
- Strong experience supporting startups across emerging markets globally in developing products and analyzing data to understand business performance
- Expertise in lean product management, including design sprints, value proposition design, hypothesis-driven experimentation, roadmaps prioritization, as well as in business modelling
- Experience investing in startups or helping startups raise funds
- Must demonstrate the ability to think on your feet, i.e. a “hacker” mentality
- Ability to work in a fast-paced, startup environment, with strong attention to detail for all tasks, even virtually
- Ability to mentor and coach startup founders and teams
- Ability to complete tasks promptly while balancing several assignments with inputs from multiple team members
- Strong analytical skills to perform data deep-dives on startups’ data
- Ability to run trials and MVPs set up experiments, develop and deliver go-to-market launch plans
- Demonstrated success in defining, launching, and managing jobtech, marketplaces, climate tech, e-commerce, or digital financial (fintech) products.
Anticipated Start Date: March 2025
Preferred location: Nigeria
Candidates must have local work permits. Compensation will be commensurate with experience.
Only shortlisted candidates who provide the required information will be contacted for follow-up.
At BFA, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and teammates without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation, and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, military, and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
BFA believes that diversity and inclusion among our teammates are critical to our success as a global company. We seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool and to carry out the best inclusion work we undertake.
*BFA will not sponsor work permits.
**BFA will not pay for relocation expenses.