Mobile Financial Sector Expert

  • Full-time

Company Description

IDEO.org improves the lives of poor and vulnerable communities through design. To affect that change, we work directly with foundations, nonprofits, and social enterprises; create tools and resources that teach human-centered design; and influence the social sector with stories of human-centered design in action. IDEO.org works directly with organizations across a range of focus areas including health, financial services, gender equity, education, and agriculture.

Job Description

Position Summary

IDEO.org is seeking a Mobile Financial Sector Expert to join the Financial Health program in San Francisco. You’ll work with a multi-disciplinary team of designers to improve financial inclusion for the world’s poor through Human-Centered Design. You’ll gain inspiration and empathy for the low-income people we seek to serve by conducting field research in East Africa and beyond. You’ll transform behavioral insights into new products, services, and experiences that we’ll design, prototype, and test—then help our partners take these new solutions to market.  

You may have worked at a mobile-network operator in emerging markets in Sub-Saharan Africa or Asia and managed products for mobile-money services, including marketing, distribution, or sales. You are deeply networked in the mobile financial-services space: you’re as comfortable sitting next to leadership teams to push through new product decisions as you are rolling up your sleeves with the technology team to solve implementation questions. You have an understanding of how these businesses work, how decisions are made, and how products get to market. And you may have picked up an MBA along the way. 

By bringing your experience of what the industry has done, you also have a distinct point of view on where the sector should go next. And by harnessing the power of Human-Centered Design, you’re excited about the potential to enable mobile money to truly benefit the world’s poor. 

As Mobile Financial Sector Expert, we’ll ask you to wear many hats, but here are some we’ll ask you to wear most often: 

Financial Inclusion Technical Expert

  • Lead the Financial Health team’s point of view on where design should play a role in the financial inclusion space
  • Engage organizations such as startups, banks and network operators, to teach them about human-centered design and find opportunities for collaboration with IDEO.org
  • Leverage existing relationships in the sector to guide partner organizations as they operationalize the solutions we design
  • Translate IDEO.org mindsets, products and services to the financial inclusion sector

Human-Centered Designer (and Evangelist)

  • Understand and be passionate about the potential for human-centered design in the financial inclusion space
  • Anchor in empathy - for the people we are designing solutions for and the ecosystem they are a part of
  • Contribute to the design team’s work - everything from doing research in the field with end users, to synthesizing what we heard, designing prototypes and building the capacity of our partners to run experiments

Relationship Builder

  • Build a pipeline of relationships to anchor the Financial Health team, including implementation partners, funders, and other collaborators
  • Represent IDEO.org and provide thought leadership at financial inclusion sector conferences, technical workshops, and publications
  • Build relationships with key actors in the financial inclusion sector

Impact Guide and Storyteller

  • Own relationships with the partners we work with and be the point person around collecting data that shows the impact through the solutions be bring to market
  • Distill IDEO.org’s point of view in the sector by leading creation of reports and publications that represent IDEO.org’s point of view to the public

Qualifications

Ideal Candidate:

You are passionate about the intersection of social sector, design, and financial services. You have worked in the financial space for years, either at a bank or a network operator, and you can’t wait to roll up your sleeves and do it again for an organization with huge ambitions. You love building networks to unlock opportunities, inspire others, and create impact. You know how to close the deal, mobilize the team, and get things done. You’re guided by your business sense and your people sense, and you know how to make decisions that are good for the organization, its strategy, its impact, its people and its sustainability. Balancing multiple projects and prioritizing your time comes naturally to you. You have strong qualifications, including:

  • 7+ years of relevant experience - mostly in the financial inclusion space
  • Multiple strong relationships and partnerships throughout the financial inclusion sector
  • Business development experience with banks, network operators, startups, nonprofits, foundations, and/ or individual philanthropists
  • Excellent demonstrated skills working with diverse teams, including the ability to inspire, motivate, influence, and hold colleagues accountable to high standards (ideally with some experience with creative talent)
  • Comfort with driving results in a highly ambiguous environment
  • Strong consulting and customer service skills, which help you listen to the needs of others and frame opportunities around them
  • Exceptional communication skills
  • Passion for IDEO.org’s mission to spread human-centered design throughout the social sector

Additional Information

Please upload your resume and cover letter.  Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.