The Rallying Cry

The Rallying Cry is an initiative designed to catalyse private sector investment in gender and climate in Africa, and shift women’s voices from the frontlines of climate change to the forefront of global climate leadership.

Our role as a catalytic intermediary is to shift capital from allocators with gender and climate objectives to agribusiness enterprises delivering ground-level gender and climate solutions. We do this by building capacity of capital allocators and enterprises, surfacing deal pipelines and making matches.

We also seek to shift narratives of women in Africa from victims of climate change to agents of change. We do this by elevating their stories and voices to engage and influence policy makers.

We recently kick-started Phase 2 and require immediate support meeting ambitious deliverables set for our Shift Narrative and Shift Capital workstreams so now seek a Program Manager for a dynamic new role starting ASAP.

Our work is supported by FMO, Building Prospects and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with collaboration from Triple C Advisory, Kite Insights and partners. We are currently operating as a non-profit, fundraising for future phases, and looking to formalise both our non-commercial and revenue-generating activities.

The Rallying Cry is a product of female leadership, shared values and collective wisdom.

Job Description

As part of Shift Capital, we will select a cohort of women-led private sector agribusiness enterprises in Zambia and Kenya to participate in a new Activator Program, building on our earlier Women Business Leaders’ Network.

Engagement with the cohort will also inform Shift Narratives activities. Therefore, we seek a candidate interested in both access to finance and increased representation of African women-led SMEs in global climate finance and leadership. We attended COP26 in Glasgow in our first year and aim to attend COP27 in Egypt in Nov. Preparing enterprise leaders for in-person and virtual representation is a key deliverable.

Areas of Responsibility

1. Activator Program

● Design and implement Activator Program, enabling a cohort of women-led agribusiness SMEs in Zambia and Kenya to access capital, markets, networks, technology and networks for growth and scale

● Lead in identifying, vetting, selecting and onboarding enterprises

● Conduct needs assessments and prepare enterprises for capital provider engagement, developing key insights to guide implementation and match enterprises to capital providers

● Coordinate design and execution of technical capacity-building sessions, e.g. how to:

– Engage with capital providers and meet their criteria

– Develop pitch decks

– Upskill and amplify gender/ climate impact, supporting enterprise formalisation

● Provide individual/ group support and programming to foster a tightly knit community of practice, learning and peer-to-peer exchange

● Be a bridge between Shift Capital and Shift Narrative, helping meet objectives of both

● Manage relationships with capital providers and ecosystem partners, e.g. business development providers, incubators, accelerators, agtech/ fintech

● Develop impact indicators, conduct a baseline assessment plus ongoing monitoring and evaluation

● Document strategic recommendations to shape future program activity

2. Storytelling/ Surfacing frontline experiences

Lead in spotlighting enterprises to showcase homegrown African success stories, including:

● Drive content development of powerful, inspiring stories and ground-level insights for amplification via social media, publications, stakeholder engagement and events

● Support our enterprise leaders on building bios and profiles, identifying a potential group of “ambassadors” for speaking opportunities

● Collaborate with our content partner, Kite Insights, to develop case studies featuring the cohort, making the business case for investing in gender- and climate-smart African enterprises

● Elevate enterprise leader profiles and stories on our website, Linked In, newsletters, etc

3. United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27

● Engage with stakeholders to co-create engagement events at COP27, ensuring we bring the voices of African women to the global stage and forefront of climate action

● Provide support pre/ during COP27, including in-person/ virtual event management, plus creating content for social media and our Thought Leadership Report

● Secure additional speaking opportunities for Activator cohort in relevant fora beyond COP27, including fringe events outside the official conference

● Ensure timely follow-up on actions and leads created at COP27

4. Team Engagement and Support

Join a vibrant, international virtual team passionate about elevating African women climate entrepreneurs. We are values and purpose-driven, committed to the work and each other. Current team activities include:

● Participate in weekly stand-ups, monthly team meetings and a quarterly team bonding session

● Support leadership team in engaging Special Advisors and funders

Person Specification

We seek a mid-career professional, consultant or entrepreneur with a Master’s degree and/ or 5-7 years of relevant experience:

Essential Skills

● Financial background in international development or the commercial sector, e.g. as an entrepreneur, bid writer or business development manager, or at an incubator or investment fund. Wherever you gained your financial acumen, you have solid, up-to-date knowledge of due diligence and SMEs’ unique business needs

● Experience working with SMEs or capital providers/ allocators in Africa or the Global South; an understanding of strategic and commercial aspects of growing and scaling SMEs

● Familiarity with financial products appropriate for SMEs such as debt, equity, blended finance, grants and alternative approaches

● Ability to engage different types of capital providers e.g. international investors, local capital providers and commercial banks

● Interest in implementing climate change adaptive approaches to agribusiness

● Ability to build and tap into a global and local network of stakeholders e.g. technical assistance/ business support providers, agtech/ fintech, and potential strategic partners on gender/ carbon credits

● Superb communication, community coordination, project management and program design skills using robust methodologies for planning, sharing and evaluation

● Desire to amplify women’s leadership and entrepreneurship in local/ global fora

Desirable Skills

● Experience with agribusiness or women-led enterprises

● Successful track record of building and holding space for communities of women entrepreneurs

● Experience with gender-lens investing and impact indicators

Qualities

Our ideal candidate is organised and efficient, works accurately and proactively, and learns quickly, with good attention to detail. You will thrive in this role if you:

● Adeptly connect with people and build positive relationships, in person and remotely

● Are a phenomenal listener with great interpersonal skills, building trust and rapport

● Are comfortable working in start-up or project environments involving fluidity, ambiguity and shifts in pace, particularly around key events

● Recognise women enterprise leaders as core clients at the heart of our work

A strong verbal and written communicator, you network using emotional intelligence and critical thinking with diverse stakeholders, taking accurate meeting notes to enable follow-up. Ideally, you have worked with remote consultants or teams dispersed across time zones, using a range of digital tools like MS Office, Google Workspace, Dropbox, Slack, WhatsApp, Zoom and social media. You have your own laptop, mobile phone and stable internet connection and are comfortable working fully remotely. We cannot sponsor work visas and you will work in your country of residence. Some travel may be required in Zambia, Kenya or Egypt.

Female applicants based in Africa are especially welcome, particularly Zambia or Kenya. However, we are keen to hear from suitably experienced or skilled people of any gender, age, ethnicity, religion, ability, sexuality or family status in any location, sharing our commitment to promoting female leadership values, bringing the voices of women leaders on the frontline of climate change to a global stage, and widening access to capital investment for African female enterprise leaders.

Benefits

● Join a global, multidisciplinary team from diverse backgrounds and experiences, united by shared vision for inclusive climate leadership and finance

● Impact the development roadmap of an early-stage NGO and contribute to maturing our strategy and processes

● Gain a deeper understanding of climate finance, gender-lens investment and agribusinesses

● Build your experience transforming data into measurable, impactful program activity

● Connect with and share learning from the inspiring work African women are doing to mitigate climate change and drive adaptation

This role is flexibly full-time Mon-Fri. We can consider workable part-time proposals though at times availability must be driven by program need. The role is remote and location-agnostic provided you overlap daily hours with GMT + EAT time zones. We will consider any strong applicants but, given budget constraints and future potential in-person tasks, those in Zambia or Kenya receive priority.

An initial 6 month contract, reviewable at 3 months and renewable for one year by mutual agreement. Salary negotiable from EUR 150-300 per day, dependent on experience, credentials and location.