Acumen East Africa is looking for an Associate Director for Investing to join its Nairobi-based team; we are seeking candidates with at least 10-15 years of experience in impact investing to help build and manage an investment portfolio of impact-driven early-stage companies across East Africa.

About Acumen

We are investors. A different kind of investor. We invest in people and companies working to solve problems for people living in poverty... essential products and services that bring more opportunities, more choices to millions. To date, Acumen has positively impacted 309 million lives by investing $137M in 139 innovative, early-stage companies in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States. But investment is not only about capital, we have been investing in innovators for years, connecting with emerging leaders around the world and engaging them in collective dialogue, moral inquiry, and skill building.

About Acumen East Africa

The Associate Director will be joining a small team building a portfolio of game-changing companies focused on tackling poverty in East Africa. Since 2003, Acumen East Africa has invested in 33 companies reaching over 35M low-income lives in the region. We’re committed to the principles of inclusive capital and to growing a portfolio of locally founded businesses. The team is responsible for finding, vetting, structuring and managing investments in companies that serve low-income East Africans in our three portfolio sectors: Energy, Education and Agriculture.

About the Role

The Associate Director will evaluate new investment opportunities, conduct due diligence on high potential opportunities as they arise, and structure deal terms as well as manage our existing portfolio and actively drive and deliver exits from investments that have served their purpose. The role will model the principles of investing as detailed by Acumen.

Responsibilities include:

Identifying investment opportunities and due diligence

• Identify, cultivate, and review a pipeline of companies working to solve an important problem for low-income learners. Evaluate their model and market opportunity.
• Conducting due diligence and investment analysis, including financial modeling, valuation review, and structuring.
• Prepare and present investment documentation for Acumen East Africa’s Investment Committee
• Lead the closing of transactions including negotiations of investment conditions (i.e., price, shareholders rights) along with the investees and Acumen legal team
• Actively work to simplify terms while holding principles.

Post Investment and Metric Evaluation

• Assess portfolio company needs related to post investment support, assess how to add value to the companies (Is it strategy? Cash flow? Operations? Talent? Where should they focus and why? How can you help?)
• Build a network of potential impact funders/investors for the technical assistance or other funding requirements of investees to scale their businesses.
• Execute on Performance Based Financing goals for our Education portfolio
• Identify Acumen community members who could represent Acumen at the board level and potentially serve on a board.
• Actively support and lead the scheduled exit roadmap for a few portfolio companies.
• Represent Acumen on the board of Acumen’s legacy portfolio company.
• Actively support select companies on governance, finance asset management and leadership

Knowledge Management and Thought Leadership:

• Lead the insights generation work on existing portfolio and also document it in a well formatted and succinct manner for future reference.
• Lead the Acumen East Africa team to analyze and document data-driven explanations for portfolio decisions; to extract and document investment-specific and general insights; to analyze metrics data to identify patterns; and to channel that data to outputs for marketing and fundraising efforts.
• Produce discrete knowledge and research materials based on lessons from Acumen’s portfolio
• Manage the Education Advisory Committee and prepare the Annual Education Report
• Contribute to fundraising strategy, proposals and budgets to facilitate growth.
• Represent Acumen East Africa’s Portfolio work at all global portfolio forums.
• Participate in development and implementation of other Acumen initiatives and projects.

Team Leadership

• Manage 2-4 team members, coach and support them in developing investing skills related to financial modeling, relationship management, deal negotiation and post-investment support
• Work in close partnership with the East Africa Director and across the global investment teams to support sector-specific initiatives and share learning.

This role will report to the East Africa Regional Director.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's Degree is required, Master’s degree preferable
• 10-15 years of experience in venture capital, with preferred 7-10 years of investment experience with private equity, investment banking, or investment management, including experience with financial and operational due diligence of early-stage businesses
• Understand Performance Based Financing
• Experience with financial and operational due diligence of early-stage businesses.
• Superior financial, modeling and business analysis skills; demonstrated by prior experience.
• Solid operational skills including problem solving and project management skills, including ability to work and deliver projects independently, proactively and under pressure.
• Significant commitment or experience with the social enterprise sector in West Africa, demonstrated commitment to tackling challenges of poverty.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills; ability to present arguments and analysis in a clear and succinct manner to Acumen management, partners and investees
• Strong ability to take initiative with research and analysis and produce valuable results in conditions of uncertainty
• Self-reflective and aligned with Acumen values
• Must be permanently authorized to work in Kenya

Deadline to apply:
Apply as soon as possible as applications will be reviewed and interviews scheduled on a rolling basis.