Pula

Location:  Remote

About Pula: 

According to the UN’s InterGovernmental Panel for Climate Change more than 3.3 billion people globally live in hotspots with high vulnerability to climate change and are now already feeling the impact of climate change through increased temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall. 

Insurance is a tool for vulnerable households in these affected regions to adapt to the effects that climate change is already having today on these households. It is a tool that enables for compensation payment for losses and damages that these households had no part in causing. Insurance compensation enables these households to make adjustments to their day to day livelihoods and practices and therefore allows for an equitable and just transition.

At Pula, we are building the systems that enable farmers worldwide to access insurance, using technology to insure this previously uninsured worldwide. We work in over 17 countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2021, have facilitated crop insurance cover to over 6 million farmers, 30% of which are women, across Kenya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Zambia, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. We are a for profit, and have raised over $10 million from leading venture and institutional investors as well as developed philanthropic relationships with private foundations and bilateral donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and German Insure Resilience Solutions Fund that have accelerated investments in our target markets.

Pula is proudly break-neck paced, constantly learning from the challenges we face and overcome. We are proudly culturally diverse but united in our ambition of continuous high-performance. By challenging ourselves we believe that we can overcome the hard problems we love solving.

At Pula, our culture is defined by our: 

1. Obsession with results: We are responsible for our future and therefore we get things done!
2. Ability to connect the Dots: We continuously identify different customer needs & business problems and build solutions that deliver value.
3. Our Can do Attitude! We dare to do things differently to make things work.
4. Ability to have each others’ back: We look out for each other & we share high quality, timely feedback that makes us better.

The Pula Director - Consulting & Research

Pula is seeking an experienced consulting director to build our insights into smallholder farmers. She/he must have a love for building partnerships across commercial and public sector, profits and nonprofits, probing into data, solving challenging problems, and structuring complex processes, while also being comfortable building a cutting-edge ag-tech startup.

She/he is expected to independently lead consulting engagements that leverage our trove of existing relationships, products, data and leverage the potential of new technologies, including remote sensing, with the goal of delivering tangible new consulting revenue and long term new commercial opportunities. Tasks will range from liaising with new research and corporate and philanthropic clients, to working with management and tech teams to ensure smooth delivery of research and insights, to visiting the field to understand the on-the-ground perspective, to synthesizing learnings from the business and clients, to contributing to the creation of new value-additive products for farmers, agribusiness, insurers, governments, mobile operators and their agent networks. 

The Director- consulting & research will report to the President & Co-Founder, and work in close collaboration with the partnerships, product, commercial, actuarial and operations teams.

A detailed job description for the position is as follows: 

Independently lead consulting engagements with our clients that include governments, private sector companies and development agencies. Manage the whole consulting cycle from identifying new opportunities, working with the commercial team to pitching for opportunities, developing proposals and managing a small team of analysts to deliver on the project. The nature of projects can be diverse ranging from advising governments on strategies for increasing agriculture insurance penetration to developing an agri-lending and insurance product for a regional bank to delivering capacity development programs for regulators and policymakers.

Lead our consulting and research projects partnering with our philanthropic and consulting partners that include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Shell Foundation, MasterCard Foundation, KPMG, Bayer Foundation amongst others, working with a small team to deliver on the contracted deliverables.  You will lead discrete data analysis and research initiatives that help Pula better understand customer behavior as identified by these 3rd parties, for example: estimating impact of gender on insurance uptake in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia.

Lead the team on identifying new commercial opportunities in new and existing markets, supporting market sizing for feasibility studies in new countries and ensuring that our commercial team has a steady supply opportunities.

What you need to have to be successful- the hard skills: 

• You can demonstrate to have originated and delivered on consulting work from development agencies and/or institutional donors for a value of at least $500,000 over the course of your career. 
• You have experience working with Development Agencies at all levels and navigating institutional structures both in private foundations and either bilateral or multilateral agencies.
• Partnerships, Business Development or Consulting experience in the area of Climate and Disaster Risk Finance, Food Security, Financial Inclusion or related is a significant advantage.
• Networks, Experience and knowledge in the Climate Finance and Carbon Credit Industry will place you at an advantage.
• You are fully comfortable with Google Drive applications such as Google Sheets, Google Docs etc.

We value soft skills as much, or often even more as the above mentioned hard skills. The right profile fit for the role is therefore described below, with weights indicating relative importance. 

Relationships: 30%

Can build relationships with stakeholders rapidly and can expand into new networks quickly. Having deep rooted existing networks and relationships is a plus. Passionate about building and maintaining relationships.

Resilient & Intense: 20%  

Can navigate deal complexity and will not give up until the deal is signed. Tenacious. A self starter. Recovers quickly from tough situations. Eager to build new partnerships, has a point to prove and looks to prove that point at Pula. Builds their profile and therefore reputation around Pula and the Pula products. They do not want to fail and therefore will do what it takes for Pula to succeed.

Coachable: 10%

Adaptable: Is eager to learn and grow in their skills and ability. Is resourceful to close any skills and knowledge gap. Openly receives and shares feedback. A consummate learner.

Gravitas yet Street Smart 20%

Charming. Has a confident, comfortable presence. Can sit across from the UN Secretary General, Bill Gates or the Minister of Agriculture of Kenya and hold their own and pitch without assistance. Can understand and map the stakeholders in a new partnership, identify and test champions, structure the partnership, problem solve and find another way when a proposed partnership gets stuck.

Communication: 10%

Can confidently convert information internally and externally adjusting quickly between written and verbal communication as situations call for it. Follows through on action points from conversations and can succinctly summarize the progress required to progress a partnership.

What Pula will bring to the table:

• Growth potential: With an untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide, on track to doubling the number of farmers insured in 2021 and Pula’s global leadership in Agriculture Insurance, the Institutional Partnerships Director has a tremendous upside growth potential.
• Join the Global Market Leader: Not only is the opportunity massive, but Pula is by far the market leader in it’s category with 6m farmers insured as at the end of 2021.
• Personal Development: We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with the company President, and receive regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.
• Impact and creation: This is a high-impact role, reporting to the President, that offers a unique opportunity to bring the company to the next level, whilst developing new strategies, approaches and ideas.
• Remuneration: Competitive base salary accordingly with seniority and experience, commission on closed partnerships and an employee share option plan that offers an attractive equity upside.

To learn more about Pula:

TED Talk: Crop Insurance, an Idea Worth Seeding

New York Times: He Grew up on a Farm. Now, He Helps Protect Them

The Economist: The Poor, Who Most Need Insurance, Are Least Likely to Have It