Partnerships and Consulting Manager

26 days ago
Full time role
Remote · Nairobi, Nairobi County, KE... more

About Pula

We are an insuretech firm that provides agriculture insurance design and execution services, specialising in index based insurance and are backed by top tier VC investors who have invested more than $25 million in the business. Since 2015 we have provided climate insurance to 15.4 million smallholder farmers, 41% of which were women across 19 markets in Africa and Asia who pay an average of $6.8 per season to insure their crops. So far we've unlocked over $2.22 billion of capital from local and international insurance markets for climate risks since we started in 2015 and paid out $40.8 million to our client farmers.

Pula is a fast-paced space, constantly adapting to new opportunities and challenges and we are made up of a high-performance, multi-cultural team. We expect our team to value performance, results and professionalism.

At Pula, our values are: 

  • Obsessed with results: We are responsible for our future and therefore we get things done!
  • Connect the Dots: We continuously identify different customer needs & business problems and build solutions that deliver value.
  • Have a Can do Attitude! We dare to do things differently to make things work.
  • We have each others’ back: We look out for each other & we share high quality, timely feedback that makes us better. 

According to the UN’s InterGovernmental Panel for Climate Change more than 3.3 billion people globally live in hotspots with high vulnerability to climate change and are now already feeling the impact of climate change through increased temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall. 
Insurance is a tool for vulnerable households in these affected regions to adapt to the effects that climate change is already having today on these households. It is a tool that enables for compensation payment for losses and damages that these households had no part in causing. Insurance compensation enables these households to make adjustments to their day to day livelihoods and practices and therefore allows for an equitable and just transition.

At Pula, we are building the systems that enable farmers worldwide to access insurance, using technology to insure this previously uninsured worldwide. We work in over 17 countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2021, have facilitated crop insurance cover to over 6 million farmers, 30% of which are women, across Kenya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Zambia, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. We are a for profit, and have raised over $10 million from leading venture and institutional investors as well as developed philanthropic relationships with private foundations and bilateral donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and German Insure Resilience Solutions Fund that have accelerated investments in our target markets.

Pula is proudly fast paced, constantly learning from the challenges we face and overcome. We are proudly culturally diverse but united in our ambition of continuous high-performance. By challenging ourselves we believe that we can overcome the hard problems we love solving. 

At Pula, our culture is defined by our: 


1.Obsessed with results: We are responsible for our future and therefore we get things done!

2. Ability to connect the Dots: We continuously identify different customer needs & business problems and build solutions that deliver value.

3. Our Can do Attitude! We dare to do things differently to make things work.

4. Ability to have each others’ back: We look out for each other & we share high quality, timely feedback that makes us better.

What you will be doing

Partnership and Business Development 

  • Identify opportunities to extend existing grants or secure new funding from current partners, and lead the development and presentation of grant proposals 
  • Independently work on the identification, writing, relationship building, and contracting of Pula’s grant-funded projects
  • Manage stakeholder relations, including donors and private/public sector partners, through a combination of in-person & hybrid meetings and in-country visits 
  • Work with external consultants and agencies who may be contracted to work on research initiatives and ensure there is a clear scope of work, research questions, etc 
  • Support the commercial team on interactions with donors 

Consulting 

  • Identify opportunities to extend existing consulting work or secure new funding from current clients, and lead the development and presentation of client proposals 
  • Lead the execution of consulting projects to a high standard and retain clients for additional work.
  • Support the Partnerships & Consulting team with developing client/partner-facing presentations

What you need to be successful

  • You have 5-7 years of total professional experience with 1-3 years of these in consulting or project management.
  • You have a strong background in partner management, successfully managing relationships with donors and clients.
  • You are charismatic, confident, and trustworthy, with a personality suited to building and managing relationships with stakeholders across sectors, seniority, and cultures.
  • You are tenacious, resilient, and politely persistent to get to a “yes” with partners.
  • You have proven project management experience and can handle multiple projects effectively.
  • You are meticulous and highly organized in planning, executing, and monitoring projects.
  • You are an effective communicator with strong writing skills, capable of synthesizing information, drafting compelling proposals, and communicating ideas across diverse platforms.
  • You have experience creating visually appealing presentations and communicating ideas effectively using tools like MS PowerPoint.
  • You have knowledge or experience in raising grants or closing partnerships.
  • You can write and speak in English fluently; fluency in French is an added advantage.

What Pula will bring to the table

  • Growth potential: At Pula, we are building the systems that enable farmers worldwide to access insurance, using technology to insure this previously uninsured worldwide. We work in over 19 countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2023, have facilitated crop insurance cover to over 5 million farmers, 40% of which are women. We are a for profit, and have raised over $25 million from leading venture and institutional investors as well as developed philanthropic relationships with private foundations and bilateral donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and German Insure Resilience Solutions Fund that have accelerated investments in our target markets.
  • Market Leader: Not only is the opportunity massive, but Pula is by far the market leader in it’s category with 11m farmers insured as of 2023.
  • Solid: Pula has been funded by leading venture capital investors (Omidyar Network, ACCION, MercyCorps) and global philanthropic institutions (MasterCard Foundation, CGAP/World Bank as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Pula closed an oversubscribed $20m series B funding despite the economic downturn.
     
  • Respected: Winner of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2019, Winner of The InsureTech of the Award, Africa. Featured on TED talks, The New York Times, The Economist.
  • Impact and creation: This is a high-impact role, that offers a unique opportunity to bring the company to the next level, whilst developing new strategies, approaches and ideas.
  • Leadership: The founders & CEO foster a culture of transparency, respect, high performance, pragmatism, execution and personal development.
  • Purpose: It is rare to find a professional opportunity that offers accelerated professional development and a life purpose. Pula is going through a second phase of accelerated growth that will naturally provide professional development, whilst contributing to the financial stability of small farmers in the emerging markets.
  • Remuneration: Competitive base salary accordingly with seniority and experience, commission on closed sales and an employee share option plan that offers an attractive equity upside.

To learn more about Pula you can visit

TED Talk: Crop Insurance, an Idea Worth Seeding
New York Times: He Grew up on a Farm. Now, He Helps Protect Them
The Economist: The Poor, Who Most Need Insurance, Are Least Likely to Have It

How to apply

Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English.

Pula’s mission is to provide farmer resilience. To achieve this, we put our small holder farmers that use our services and the employees that provide them at the heart of everything we do. For that purpose, Pula was created to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.