The goal of this role is not for the FSP team to get directly engaged in new product development, but rather to enable the ecosystem such that both private and public sector players are motivated to build products for the poor. The role seeks to accelerate large-scale usage of DFS through increased action by key private and public institutions. You will lead the team’s efforts to build and implement strategies to address policy constraints, infrastructure gaps, or other market failures that will catalyze action and investments by providers in the market. You will also be expected to develop and manage a portfolio of grants and related interventions, while partnering closely with a wide variety of players.
- Digitization of government payments for financial inclusion (FI) and women’s economic empowerment (WEE): While governments globally are now prioritizing digitization of their payments to people (e.g. social security, subsidy payments etc.), implementation efforts are often sub-optimal and focused on efficiency gains rather than being designed for furthering financial inclusion and/or women’s economic empowerment. A key focus for this role will be to help establish global standards for digitizing government payments and enable their adoption by governments and other key implementation partners. In this effort, you will be collaborating with global development partners (e.g. the World Bank, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor [CGAP], Better Than Cash Alliance [BTCA], etc.) and various in-country government policy makers and program implementers.
- Catalyze the private sector for driving digital payments usage: Within key markets, you will identify use cases, industries and specific private sector partners that have the potential to contribute to large-scale usage of DFS by the poor. You will build relationships with selected private sector providers to better understand their business models and identify policy or infrastructure gaps, and other market failures that may be hindering the providers from building payment products and services for the poor. Once identified, you will be expected to develop strategies for addressing these gaps and market failures. In this effort, you will engage with a range of private sector players – including both financial (e.g. banks, payment service banks, micro finance institutions, telecoms, etc.), and non-financial players (e.g. large technology platforms, dynamic consumer goods companies, garment factories etc.).
- Evolve FSP’s usage strategy to include products beyond payments: You will conduct research and analysis to inform FSP’s strategy and investment portfolio for interventions beyond payments (e.g. digital credit, savings and insurance). In this effort, you may also engage with other teams across the foundation (e.g. Agriculture Development and teams within the Global Health division) for driving various sector specific DFS usages like agriculture credit, health care payments or health insurance.
In all these efforts, you are expected to collaborate with FSP country program officers in evaluating market failures/gaps and in the development and implementation of new solutions/strategies for driving increased usage in our focus markets.
We are looking for people who enjoy the opportunity of working on complex problems and collectively building solutions that have the potential for transformative change in the lives of people around the world. We seek a creative and curious leader who has an excellent track record of achievement and leadership in roles of growing responsibility. You should be prepared to work across a diverse set of disciplines, bridging a wide range of expertise all the while being a teammate, with a proven ability to work with flexibility, efficiency and diplomacy in an exciting, challenging environment. Additionally, we seek:
- 10+ years of DFS/Financial Inclusion practitioner experience - on the ground, consumer product and service provider experience – in emerging markets (preferable within Sub Saharan Africa or South/SE Asia).
- Preference for a mix of both private and public sector work experience.
- Strong critical thinking and analytical skillset with proven ability for driving strategic changes in large organizations.
- Experience in engaging with and influencing senior leadership at a variety of organizations.
- Demonstrated skillset in relationship building and collaboration.
- Empathy for the poor consumers and their financial needs and constraints.
- Excellent communication skills.
- Experience guiding and managing large and complex projects, including working with a diverse range of stakeholders.
- Ability to travel up to 30% of time; both domestically and internationally.