• Prepare investment profiles of the target bio circular innovations.
• Organize investor forums to mobilize investments in bio-circular innovations.
• Identify specific needs of the innovation scaling partners to develop/sharpen their scaling/business plan.
• Provide technical assistance to each innovation scaling partner to develop/sharpen a scaling/business plan before submission to the Project Advisory and Steering Committees.
• Develop an agreed-upon detailed business delivery plan for each innovation scaling partner with short and medium-term goals in the fields of supply chain management, marketing, sales, and accounting & financial management.
• Support the implementation of scaling/business plans effectively.
• Formulate capacity building and business development interventions and implement these interventions through training followed by individual coaching and mentoring the companies based on their specific needs to further sharpen their business understanding and skills and to accelerate the implementation of their business plans.
• Supervise business services providers
• Assisting the innovation businesses in formulating an individual strategy to improve their readiness to secure investment (equity, loan) to scale their operations.
• Lead the engagement of policy-makers and regulators in advocacy workshops and identify needs and entry points for enabling policies
• Lead the development of policy notes and briefs to engage policy-makers.
• Ensure visibility of the project activities and results in scientific, development, and policy arenas, as well as among local stakeholders in the regions where project activities take place.
• Lead effective project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and documentation with project partners and donors.
• Lead the elaboration of project reports.
• Supervise junior staff.
• Additional tasks may be assigned by the supervisors as deemed necessary or relevant to the role.

Requirements

• The candidate should have completed a Master’s degree (Preferably an MBA or MSc) with specialization in Finance, Marketing, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Agribusiness.
• 5+ years of professional experience supporting the start-up of commercial agribusiness production, sales, and marketing operations.
• Experience promoting the introduction and adoption of new agriculture technology in Rwanda and East Africa.
• Experience advising small and medium private agribusinesses involved in agri-food systems and/or circular ventures.
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience related to SMEs, access to finance, the private sector, and entrepreneurship development.
• Experience in successful engagement with public sector institutions.
• Excellent communication skills, able to interact with a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary team of scientists and development partners in layman language.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English and working proficiency in French, and Kinyarwanda.
• Affinity with multi-stakeholder approaches
• Proactive and independent problem solver, and excellent team player.
• A good understanding of the circular economy theories, approaches, and policy landscape in Rwanda is an advantage.
• Proven capacity in publishing technical, and/or scientific documents such as journal articles, and policy briefs is an advantage.
• Proven project management skills.
• Experience with monitoring and evaluation of research for development interventions is considered an advantage.