Opportunity International
Director of Inclusive Finance
Chicago ,
Illinois
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The Director of Inclusive Finance will be the senior lead and strategic owner of AgFinance's Inclusive Finance strategy. The role will oversee the programmatic growth as defined in the approved strategic plan while reducing gender disparities in access to income and assets and increasing women's agency. As a direct report to Opportunity's Head of Agriculture Finance, the Director of Inclusive Finance will drive program-wide growth targets while ensuring the integration of gender and inclusion to empower women within and across the program. This position will:
RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned.
Management of Strategic Plan
Implement an Inclusive Finance strategy by facilitating the integration, collaboration, and learning across the AgFinance team.
Enhance the organizational understanding of industry best standards, particularly rural women's empowerment strategies.
Drive portfolio and outreach growth for loan clients and trained farmers.
Assess gender-disaggregated client data and identify gender gaps, barriers to entry, and opportunities for product and service adjustments.
Provide targeted technical and financial support around product development, client segmentation, and risk management.
Develop recommendations for improvements for our client-facing materials and interactions for gender inclusivity and women's empowerment best practices.
Assist in identifying, onboarding, and supporting a growing portfolio of mission-aligned financial institutions.
Provide technical assistance to partners in creating a structure to enhance inclusive practices and empower women borrowers.
Implement tools and train staff to conduct inclusivity assessments.
Foster and maintain relationships with gender champions at financial institution partners.
Construct key messaging to support women's empowerment in recruiting, onboarding, training, and supporting partners.
Incorporate Inclusive Finance strategy into team policies, procedures, and products.
Offer training aimed at increasing gender inclusivity awareness and capacity building.
Assess gender equity in program recruiting, people management, and capacity building.
Track and monitor staff goals toward gender equity and inclusion.
Women's Economic Advancement Strategy
Set, monitor, and analyze gender-inclusive metrics and reporting to drive program strategy.
Construct and lead a gender-focused learning agenda.
Participate in Opportunity's Global Gender Community of Practice.
Business Development
Integrate gender analysis tools to strengthen gender equality and empowerment across all business development processes.
Contribute to project design, indicators, and budgeting for new proposals.
Participate and speak at conferences, networking, & and fundraising events to promote our work in women's empowerment in agriculture.
SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITY
Matrix supervisory responsibility across the Financial Products and Client Services program verticals.
Demonstrable capacity for management and leadership growth as needed.
QUALIFICATIONS
Master's Degree in Gender, Development, Finance, Banking, Business Administration, Agriculture, or related field or commensurate experience.
Minimum of 15 years relevant experience in banking or microfinance, working with women, smallholder farmer groups, and VSLAs at a management or supervisory level.
Strong presentation skills and writing skills to summarize and disseminate strategy and learnings.
Exceptional interpersonal, networking, and relationship management skills and ability to influence change across various cross-cultural contexts.
Demonstrated experience in designing and facilitating participatory and remote training and mentoring.
Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office apps, specifically Excel, Android Apps, and other business intelligence tools. Experience in PowerBI is a plus.
Driven and extremely passionate about Inclusive Finance in Rural Africa.
An understanding of and a commitment to advancing the mission and core values of Opportunity International.
LANGUAGE SKILLS
Written and verbal fluency in English is required; fluency in French or a partner country's local language is desirable.
TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS
May travel internationally up to 30% of the time. Significant focus across Africa.
Candidates must be able to be based in the United States, the United Kingdom, or an AgFinance African Country of Operations.
ABOUT OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL
Opportunity International is a global non-profit that has been empowering people to work their way out of poverty since 1971. Opportunity provides 18.7 million people with innovative financial resources, training, and support to grow their small businesses and send their children to school. In 2022, Opportunity International and its partners helped fund 5,600 schools that reached 1.6 million children, and they released more than $2.6 billion in capital across 30 countries. Discover more at opportunity.org or join the conversation on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/OpportunityIntl) , LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/opportunity-international) , Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/opportunityintl/) , and Twitter (https://twitter.com/opportunityintl) .
ABOUT AGFINANCE
Opportunity's AgFinance model is structured to bring scalable and high-impact loans and training to rural families living in poverty to build thriving rural communities. AgFinance accomplishes this by building relationships with financial institutions to support the provision of tailored agricultural credit products and services to smallholders and agribusinesses while providing technology-enabled training and services directly to farmers.
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