Impact Associate
Description
We are seeking a minimum two year commitment from an exceptional early career design/engineer generalist to lead human centered design research, customer financing partnerships and monitoring & evaluation of our social impact – a truly unique opportunity to create diverse impact on a global scale.
The role will require a close working relationship with the venture’s CEO, Automotive Designer, Automotive Engineer, Marketing Associate and future strategy and finance teams.
Specific duties include, but are not limited to:
Human Centered Design
- Plan and lead first-hand buyer and end-user research in order to discover consumer insights that both inform and inspire design and innovation of future prototype vehicles.
- Determine users physical, financial, cognitive, social, emotional, and cultural needs; including uncovering unmet, ambiguous or disparate user needs and clearly framing these insights to enable the design team to develop imaginative and appropriate prototype solutions.
- Facilitate design team through analysis and synthesis of buyer and end-user research, helping to distil, consolidate and structure the most important insights and link them together in frameworks, principles and implications for on going prototype design.
- Communicate human centered design insights and opportunities verbally and visually in a way that generates empathy, emotion and engagement from the design and marketing teams and Mobius leadership.
- Support future-focused product ideation sessions and capture output for continuous design exploration; including longer term product category/mix roadmaps based on deep and broad consumer profiling.
Customer Financing
- Liaise with local banks, international MFIs and internal sales team to develop a deep understanding of loan/credit products available to customers in Kenya and East Africa.
- Identify key partner lending institutions that may offer financing to our customers to purchase Mobius vehicles and determine the financial and non-financial terms of such an engagement.
- Facilitate the negotiation of attractive end-to-end partnership agreements with select finance institutions and Mobius leadership.
- Maintain strong relationship with partner financing institutions and work with sales team to ensure potential and current customers have ready access to the appropriate finance channels.
Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E)
- Define key indicators to monitor commercial and social impact of Mobius vehicle usage against an on going timeline; including sales team performance, vehicle performance, buyer behavioural change and user socio-economic advantage.
- Assess the effectiveness and efficiency of sale/distribution activities, outputs and outcomes; and adoption/diffusion of key product innovations, reporting on major constraints and opportunities.
- Develop and implement simple, structured and relevant tools to effectively monitor and evaluate our commercial and social impact against defined indicators.
- Maintain dialogue with all key actors within and outside the company to gather data leading to performance assessment of the output, outcome and impact of our intervention.
- Ensure monitoring tools are updated regularly and compile reports concerning on going commercial and social performance.
- Deliver clear and structured periodic documentation outlining M&E analysis; including processes, challenges and lessons learned from M&E.
- Communicate key M&E stats within the company and support the development of funding and partnership proposals, specifically on content concerning commercial and social impact.
- Conduct training and support all staff on M&E and identify continuous monitoring priority areas for the company.
Qualifications
An ideal candidate should be empathetic, passionate, curious, articulate and entrepreneurial with a natural skill to engage with people at a deep level.
They should possess a sincere interest in representing the human and humane perspective along with the ability to prioritize multiple tasks and take initiative regularly.
They should be rigorous, pragmatic and on-the-ground solution focussed – not overly academic.
Required
- Bachelors Degree (minimum) in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Industrial Design, Automotive Design, Product Design, Business or similar
- 3.4 GPA or higher from a top university worldwide
- 1-2 years related experience in design, engineering, marketing or branding
- Strong design research methodology understanding; including research planning, field work methods (e.g. interviews and observation), online research methods and synthesis
- Excitement to work in the field and deep inquisitiveness, curiosity and empathy for others
- Ability to tell compelling stories and get people out of their seats
- Ability to challenge conventions and inspire teams to translate observations into great ideas
- Ability to strategically plan and lead teams of international and local Kenyan staff through to executional success
- Ability to lead cross-functionally; coordinating, leading and communicating information clearly
- Exceptional attention to detail and high quality deliverable outputs
- Ability to analyse and solve complex problems
- Ability to grasp complex concepts and systems quickly, and express them in simple ways
- Ability to multi-task in a fast paced environment and to remain graceful under pressure
- Ability to deal with ambiguity and make sense of multiple data sources that may sometimes be contradictory in nature
- High degree of resourcefulness; looking beyond the normal channels of information to dig out data necessary to understand the market potential of the opportunity
- Ability to effectively communicate timelines and project progress with both internal and external management teams
- Ability to take ownership and accountability of project timeline and results
- Proficiency in Excel, Project, Power Point and Word
- Exceptional written communication skills
- Exceptional presentations skills, including excellent oral communication skills
- High sense of drive and urgency in achieving our vision
- Ability to adapt to a dynamic working environment and work within a diverse team
- Extreme patience and a good sense of humour
- Exceptional interpersonal skills to work effectively with others
- A start-up personality; entrepreneurial, ambitious, independent, systematic attention to detail, structured thinker, goal-oriented, flexible and able to deal well with setbacks
- Comfort with extensive travel throughout Kenya and longer term throughout East Africa
Desired
- Masters degree (or higher) in Business Administration (MBA), Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Industrial Design, Automotive Design, Product Design, Business or similar
- 3-5 years related experience in design, engineering, marketing or branding
- Passion for the automotive industry and social enterprise in Africa
- Fluency in Kiswahili (the national language of Kenya)
How to apply
http://www.mobiusmotors.com/join-us/application.php
http://www.mobiusmotors.com/join-us/application.php