Summary

​​The Business Development Manager (Connectivity Credits) at UNICEF’s Giga initiative plays a crucial role in the growth and adoption of the Connectivity Credits Marketplace. Tasked with the challenging job of steering Giga and UNICEF teams from pilot phase to global adoption, this position will at times require the Manager to take initiative and get first results directly themselves, and later evolve to enabling other teams inside UNICEF to generate opportunities at scale. This position is a senior business development role, requiring the ability to quickly establish credibility around global development and connectivity with government and IFI stakeholders. Success in this position would steadily drive financial buy-in through stages of growth – the first $1m, $10m, $100m and $1bn, adapting their role with each phase, and bringing significant resource mobilization to Giga’s goal of global connectivity.

Your responsibilities will be…

Identify and prioritize engagement opportunities.

• Identify and prioritize strategically important countries and international financial institution stakeholders and engage through UNICEF channels.
• Identify, engage and get buy-in from the next country governments that will use Connectivity Credits (from the current starting point of 3 pilots)

Develop a go-to-market strategy.

• Enhance Giga’s understanding by clearly defining the ‘who, what, and why’ storytelling of Connectivity Credits. Develop a phased approach towards the goal of attracting funding in financing onto the Connectivity Credits Marketplace.

Enable Giga and UNICEF to generate collaboration opportunities.

• Develop foundational communication materials in collaboration from product and comms teams) that will enable the rest of the UNICEF and Giga ‘engine’ to continuously generate opportunities for Connectivity Credits
• Collaborate closely with UNICEF partnership and finance teams to embed Connectivity Credits as an offer in their programmatic portfolios.
• Oversee the development of materials to the specific needs of stakeholders, based on taking a proactive approach to understanding their context and priorities.

Relationship building and spearhead strategic agreements.

• • Develop foundational relationships with senior stakeholders in country governments and international financial institutions in person, to understand their strategic needs, generate buy-in, negotiate terms and formalize agreements.
  • Act as high-level account manager, building long-term trust-based relationships with senior stakeholders.
  • Build conviction with key stakeholders, through guiding them to step by step adoption and continuous good experience with their relationship with Giga.
  • Build visibility and advocate around Connectivity Credits through conferences and regional meetings.

To qualify for this position, you will have…

Education:

• Advanced University Degree (Master’s or higher) in fields such as business development, finance, economics or related degree is required

Work Experience:

• At least 8 years of relevant work experience in business development, strategy consulting, or similar is required.
• Experience in the Telecom, Media, and Technology (TMT) sectors, with a particular focus on internet connectivity and gigabytes is an asset.
• Experience in the financing of connectivity, particularly in collaboration with international financial institutions, is an asset.
• Experience working in emerging markets and understanding their unique challenges and opportunities.

Skills:

• Strong network of relationships with government and international financial institutions in the connectivity space.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to engage with a high-level stakeholder.
• Demonstrated ability in closing high value deals and partnerships.
• Ability to work independently, think creatively and embrace innovation in a fast-paced environment.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

About our team

We are a fast-paced, multi-disciplinary team of software engineers, finance specialists, data scientists, policy experts, and much more. Our team is a distributed workforce and plans to remain distributed into the foreseeable future. We are growing fast. Our team has grown by over 400% in the last 6 months as we rapidly scale to meet our stated mission.