Vacancy title:
Rwanda Managing Director

Jobs at:
EarthEnable Rwanda

Deadline of this Job:
25th June 2018

Duty Station:
Kigali, Rwanda

JOB DETAILS:
JOB DESCRIPTION: Rwanda Managing Director
Company: EarthEnable Rwanda
Reports to: CEO, Gayatri Datar
Location: Nyamata, Rwanda – with significant time in rural villages
Compensation: Starts modest, commensurate with experience, with significant performance-based raises

Who We Are
At EarthEnable, we believe that our clients deserve our very best, that morning high-fives are the best way to start the day, and that the best ideas could come from any part of the company. We celebrate each other’s wins, learn from our setbacks, and are deeply proud of the impact we make every day. We believe that a clean, dust-free floor means more than living in a healthy home. It means pride and dignity in the place our customers most treasure: their homes. Being a part of our team means more than building floors: it means building an organization and building a better future for rural families.

What We Do
EarthEnable is transforming the way people live, by making homes healthier for families across rural Rwanda. 75% of Rwandans live in homes with dirt floors which are dusty, unsanitary, and fertile breeding grounds for parasites and germs. While replacing a dirt floor with concrete has significant health benefits (e.g. reducing diarrhea by 50% and parasitic infections by 80%), concrete is unaffordable for many who need it.

EarthEnable addresses this pressing and ubiquitous problem by selling high-quality, earthen floors that are 70% cheaper than concrete with 90% less embedded energy. Earthen floors are already prevalent in modern homes in the United States and are composed of natural materials (gravel, clay, sand, and laterite). EarthEnable trains and hires local masons to install the floors which are sealed using a proprietary drying oil that makes them waterproof, strong, and polished. In our first 3 years of operations, EarthEnable has installed over 40,000 square meters of flooring and employed over 100 Rwandese staff (and generated jobs and income for an additional 100 masons).

About the Role
EarthEnable expanded to three new districts in the past 8 months and is looking to continue to scale and grow throughout 2018 and on into the future. In order to achieve our ambitious growth goals, we are seeking an experienced and passionate Rwanda Managing Director who is excited to take a fast-growing and high-impact organization to new levels, alongside a passionate and hard-working team. The role will involve hiring staff, overseeing office and field operations, managing the country budget, and providing regular input to hone and improve EarthEnable’s service delivery in Rwanda. There is significant opportunity to lead the company and be part of its growth.

The Managing Director will receive supervision and guidance from the CEO and other Directors. This is a field-oriented leadership position, with a consistent blend of office and fieldwork. The successful candidate will be willing to get his or her hands dirty and work closely with masons and sales reps, while having an eye for the bigger picture and growth projections of the company. We are looking for someone who is adept at detailed planning, a quick learner, and an entrepreneurial self-starter.

The responsibilities of this role will include, but certainly not be limited to:
Strategic Planning and Execution

• Work with CEO to develop scale strategy and set operational, sales, and financial targets and KPIs
• Manage execution of strategy in marketing, sales, operations, customer service, and R&D, and ensure strategies are aligned and coordinated across departments to avoid inconsistencies or overlap in workstreams
• Take ownership of all country-specific projects and deliverables
• Manage senior country management in operations, sales, finance, customer service, and research and development
• Get out to customer sites to ensure adequate communication of messages and efficient operational procedures at least once a week
• Actively seek the support of global functional directors and managers for support in systems development, team capacity building, and problem solving
  Financial Management
• Ultimate profit and loss responsibility in Rwanda: drive revenue to cover operational costs within the country, working closely with Finance to analyze budgets and actuals across various units
• Ensure fiscal responsibility in all budgets and spending, prioritizing cost cutting and cost saving
• Work with Finance to ensure taxes and payroll are completed on time
  Partnership Management
• Represent EarthEnable and its organizational ethic to local and national government officials and government agencies (Ministries, local labor office, SACCOs, cooperatives, etc.)
• Advocate for government policies that further EarthEnable’s impact (e.g. VAT exemption)
• Identify possible new partners in Rwanda and create and manage relationships with them
  Team Building
• Grow EarthEnable’s Rwanda staff by hiring along with the needs of the organization, including recognizing when new roles need to be created
• Mentor new hires and develop staff to ensure the success of the Rwanda operation
• Ensure that EarthEnable complies with Rwandan labor laws
• Update and manage our own internal rules and regulations

Qualifications

• 5-10 years of work experience, with 5 years of management experience (experience with fast-growing ventures is a plus)
• Exceptional people skills and managerial skills; avid team player with a coaching and mentoring approach
• Passionate about international development and social enterprise
• Commitment to working in rural environments across Rwanda
• Fluency (or advanced business proficiency) in English and Kinyarwanda
• Ability to work on a variety of tasks at the same time, and keep track of a variety of workstreams
• Resourcefulness and critical thinking skills to quickly determine why something isn’t working and iterate quickly to try to solve it; creative problem solving
• Excellent attention to detail, commitment to excellence, and outstanding work ethic
• Strong understanding of accounting, budget management, and financial management
• Hard working and gritty to push through challenges
• Strong analytical skills, including Excel modelling and data analysis
• Flexible and adaptable to changing environments; thrives in a bootstrapped culture
• Maturity and poise under stress
• Optimistic attitude, sense of humor, entrepreneurial spirit, curiosity to learn new things, creative problem solver, humble and patient team-player with a sense of humor
• Strong technology skills (knowledge of Word, Excel, Salesforce, Google Docs, and Dropbox)
• B.A. in business, management, marketing, economics or a related field required; graduate degree (MBA, MPA/ID, MPA, MPH etc.) a plus, but not required

Job application procedure

Apply online at http://www.earthenable.org/applynow . In your cover letter, please state what excites you most about this role, and what you think will be most challenging about it.