Global Head of Product & Innovation

Digital Product Strategy and Scaling

Digital strategy and roadmap

• Own and implement Village Enterprise’s organisation-wide digital product strategy for scaling the graduation model.
• Translate the organisational strategy into a prioritised, costed and sequenced digital product roadmap.
• Position digital products and platforms as a primary means of improving programme reach, quality, consistency, speed and cost-effectiveness.
•  Lead the digital development and continued improvement of the Sprint model, Village-in-a-Box concepts and other digitally enabled approaches to graduation delivery.
• Identify where technology can simplify, automate or improve targeting, training, coaching, participant engagement, payments, programme monitoring, partner support and operational decision-making.
• Maintain an investment portfolio that balances:
  • Improvements to existing products and systems
  • New digital products and features
  • Strategic experiments
  • Longer-term platform and infrastructure investments

Digital delivery tools

• Lead the roadmap for the digital tools required to deliver and scale the graduation product, including:
  • Field applications
  • Programme management information systems
  • Targeting and participant-selection tools
  • Digital payment solutions
  • Entrepreneur-facing products
  • Digital learning and coaching content
  • Partner implementation platforms
  • Feedback and user-support tools
  • Programme performance dashboards
• Ensure products work effectively in rural, low-resource and low-connectivity environments, including appropriate offline functionality and accessibility.
•  Establish product requirements based on the needs of entrepreneurs, field teams, government users, partners and internal stakeholders.
•  Ensure digital products are tested in real delivery environments before wider rollout.

Technology architecture and integration

• Define the product and platform architecture needed to support Village Enterprise’s graduation product.
•  Ensure appropriate integration and interoperability between field applications, programme information systems, payment platforms, data systems, partner platforms and future AI-enabled solutions.
• Work with internal technology, operations, information security, data and compliance colleagues to define clear responsibilities for:
  • Product technology architecture
  • Enterprise systems and data ownership
  • Information security and system administration
  • User support and business continuity
• Set minimum technical and product standards for scalability, reliability, accessibility, maintainability, security and data protection.
• Prevent unnecessary duplication of tools across countries and projects by maintaining an organisation-wide view of the digital product portfolio.

Build, buy and partner decisions

• Lead build, buy, adapt or partner assessments for new digital products and major product features.
• Develop clear business cases for significant digital investments, including:
  • User need and expected value
  • Total cost of ownership
  • Implementation requirements and organizational capacity
  • Information security and privacy risks
  • Sustainability beyond the initial funding period
• Select and manage product, platform, delivery and implementation partners within delegated authority and approved budgets.
• Establish clear partner and vendor performance standards, service expectations, milestones and handover requirements.
•  Reduce reliance on individual vendors where this creates significant cost, continuity, data-access or intellectual-property risks.

Product adoption and change management

• Own the adoption strategy for new digital products and major product changes.
• Ensure country teams, implementing partners and relevant government users are involved early in product design and rollout planning.
• Work with operational and country leaders to ensure that new products include:
  • User onboarding and training
  • Clear operating procedures and ongoing user support
  • Feedback channels and adoption monitoring
  • Transition and change-management plans
• Monitor actual usage and user experience after rollout, rather than treating product launch as completion.
• Address adoption barriers through product redesign, workflow changes, additional training or changes in implementation support.

Graduation Product Design for Impact at Scale

Product vision and ownership

• Own the vision, strategy, architecture and roadmap for Village Enterprise’s graduation product.
• Define the graduation product as an integrated package that may include targeting, training, mentoring, savings groups, seed capital, market and financial inclusion, digital engagement, participant feedback and other evidence-based components.
• Establish which elements of the product are:
  • Core and non-negotiable
  • Configurable within defined parameters
  • Adaptable to country or user context
  • Experimental and subject to further testing
• Ensure product design supports all three pathways:
  • Direct Implementation
  • Replication through governments and partner organisations
  • Systems Influence
• Maintain a clear, accessible and current record of the graduation product, its components, minimum standards, approved adaptations and supporting tools.

Human-centred design

•  Lead end-to-end product design using human-centred design, Lean Impact, Lean Startup or comparable evidence-based product methods.
• Ensure entrepreneurs and frontline users participate meaningfully in identifying problems, developing concepts, testing prototypes and assessing product usability.
• Build structured feedback loops with entrepreneurs, field teams, country leadership, government partners and delivery organisations.
• Use qualitative and quantitative insight to understand:
  • User needs and behaviours
  • Barriers to participation and unintended consequences
  • Inclusion and accessibility challenges
  • Product adoption and delivery bottlenecks
  • Areas where the product creates or fails to create value
• Apply an explicit gender, disability and inclusion lens to product design and testing.

Innovation pipeline and stage-gate management

• Establish and manage a disciplined innovation and product-development pipeline.
• Define clear stages for:
  • Problem identification, User research and concept development
  • Prototype, Feasibility test and Pilot
  • Readiness assessment and Controlled rollout
  • Scale, handover, redesign or stop
• Set clear evidence, cost, usability, risk and operational-readiness requirements for progression between stages.
• Maintain a prioritised product backlog informed by entrepreneur needs, evidence, country priorities, strategic goals and available resources.
• Lead regular product and portfolio reviews to decide whether initiatives should be:
  • Continued, Accelerated and Redesigned
  • Integrated into the core product
  • Handed over to an operational owner
• Create a culture in which stopping a weak product or feature is considered responsible resource management rather than failure.

Relationship with Impact, MEL and Research

• Own product design, product experimentation, user testing, feasibility testing and product-performance decisions.
• Work closely with Impact, MEL and Research to ensure that product decisions are grounded in credible evidence.
• Use impact findings, monitoring data, cost-effectiveness analysis and research evidence to improve the graduation product.
• Distinguish product experimentation from formal impact evaluation:
  • Product & Innovation tests whether a design is usable, feasible, adoptable and scalable.
  • Impact, MEL and Research determine evaluation methodology and assess whether the intervention produces intended outcomes.
• Agree evidence requirements with Impact, MEL and Research before making significant changes
• Ensure that product decisions do not overstate what the available evidence demonstrates.

Cost-effectiveness and scaling economics

•  Treat cost-effectiveness, affordability and impact per entrepreneur as explicit product-design constraints.
• Use cost and impact measures produced with Finance and Impact, MEL and Research to guide product prioritization and feature design
• Establish a product-level scaling economics framework that considers cost effectiveness of the model
• Identify and test product changes that can reduce delivery cost without weakening quality, inclusion or impact.
• Ensure cost reductions do not shift unreasonable burdens or risks to entrepreneurs, frontline workers, governments or local partners.

Markets and financial inclusion

•  Ensure the graduation product strengthens entrepreneurs’ access to relevant markets, financial services and economic opportunities.
• Integrate market and financial inclusion considerations into product design from the outset rather than treating them as stand-alone additions.
•  Work with country teams and external partners to identify practical approaches to market access and buyer and supplier connections, employment and livelihood opportunities and appropriate private-sector partnerships

Product Deployment Across Pathways and Partners,

• Design the graduation product so that it can be delivered consistently while allowing appropriate adaptation across countries, delivery partners and public systems.
• Develop product packages suitable for:
  • Village Enterprise direct delivery
  • NGO and local-organisation replication
  • Government delivery
  • Hybrid delivery arrangements
• Work with Technical Assistance teams to translate the product into implementation guidance, tools, training and quality-assurance mechanisms for partners.
• Support governments and partners to adapt digital tools and graduation products for their operating environments without undermining core evidence-based components.
• Design for interoperability with government systems where appropriate, including programme data models, workflows, monitoring systems and existing technology platforms.
• Support handover from Product & Innovation to the relevant operational, country, technical-assistance or partner owner once a product is ready for routine delivery.
•  Monitor implementation feedback across pathways and use it to improve the core product.

Responsible Data, AI and Emerging Technology

• Develop and maintain a practical AI and emerging-technology roadmap for programme delivery and scaling.
• dentify high-value uses of AI that could improve targeting support, entrepreneur coaching, learning content, operational planning, programme monitoring, data quality 
• Require a clearly defined problem, intended user benefit and implementation owner before investment in any AI solution.
• Ensure AI-enabled features are tested for usefulness, accuracy, accessibility, bias and unintended harm before broader use.
• Ensure that high-consequence decisions affecting participant eligibility, payments or access to programme support are not delegated to automated systems without appropriate safeguards and human review.
•  Work with Legal, Risk and Compliance, Impact, MEL and Research, and technology colleagues to assess significant data-sharing, AI, privacy or ethical risks.
• Build internal understanding of the appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI in programme and product work.

Team and Organisational Capability

•  Establish and lead a small, multidisciplinary Product & Innovation unit.
• Assess the capabilities required to deliver the approved product and digital roadmap.
• Recommend the phased structure, roles and skills required within the unit, taking account of strategic priorities, available funding and existing organisational capability.
•  Build the team around strategic need rather than a predetermined structure.
•  Attract, develop and retain strong product, design, digital and innovation talent.
• Set clear objectives, key results, accountabilities and working practices for the unit.
•  Coach team members and create an environment that supports user focus, constructive challenge, evidence based decisions:
•  Build wider organisational capability in product management, human centred design, digital delivery, responsible AI and portoflio management
• Establish communities of practice, learning sessions and practical tools that enable country and pathway teams to apply product methods in their work.
• Serve as a member of the Programmes leadership team and contribute to organisational strategy, priority-setting and resource allocation.

Partnerships, Resource Mobilisation and External Engagement

• Build and manage strategic partnerships with technology providers, digital delivery organisations, innovation laboratories and Universities and research institutions
• Use partnerships to accelerate product development while protecting Village Enterprise’s interests, data, intellectual property and long-term sustainability.
•  Support the development of technical proposals, investment cases and donor materials for product, digital and innovation work.
• Work with Development colleagues to position product and digital investments as clearly defined, evidence-informed funding opportunities.
• Represent Village Enterprise in relevant product, digital innovation, AI, graduation and systems-change forums.
• Share practical learning from product development and scaling while protecting participant privacy, confidential information and Village Enterprise’s intellectual property.
• Contribute thought leadership that advances the responsible scaling of poverty graduation across Africa.

Education:

• A Master’s degree in Product Design, Human-Centred Design, Innovation, Business Administration, Technology Management, Information Systems, Digital Transformation, International Development, Economics or a related field.
• Equivalent senior-level experience and a strong record of relevant achievement may be accepted in place of a Master’s degree.

Experience

• At least 10 years of progressive experience in product, digital product, service design, digital transformation or innovation leadership.
• A strong record of taking products, digital solutions or delivery models from initial concept through testing, adoption and scale.
• Demonstrated experience leading digital product, platform or solution delivery and working effectively with engineers, designers, data specialists, implementation teams and technology vendors.
• Experience developing and implementing a product or digital portfolio strategy, including prioritisation and investment decisions.
• Demonstrated experience designing and scaling products or services across multiple countries, markets, user groups or delivery channels.
• Deep, hands-on experience in human-centred design, iterative product development, rapid prototyping and experimentation.
• Experience designing products or digital solutions for people in low-resource, low-connectivity or otherwise constrained environments.
• Strong understanding of accessibility, gender, inclusion and responsible technology design.
• Demonstrated experience leading the adoption of new products or digital tools, including change management, training and user support.
• Good understanding of data products, platform architecture, interoperability and product information requirements.
• Practical knowledge of AI and emerging technology, including their potential uses, limitations and ethical risks.

Core Competencies

• Digital and Product Leadership: Sets a clear digital and product direction, makes disciplined investment choices, and maintains a robust strategy, roadmap, backlog and governance process that leads products and platforms from concept to sustained use.
• Human-Centred Design and Innovation: Designs with entrepreneurs, frontline teams, governments and partners so that products respond to real needs and operating conditions, and runs a structured innovation pipeline that enables rapid learning while stopping weak ideas before they absorb excessive resources.
• Evidence, Cost-Effectiveness and Responsible Technology: Uses impact evidence, operational data, user insight and unit economics to improve the value delivered per entrepreneur, and understands where technology and AI can add value, where they cannot, and what safeguards are required to protect users.
• Scaling, Adaptation and Systems Thinking: Designs products that preserve core standards while supporting appropriate adaptation across countries, governments, partners and delivery pathways, and understands how product design, operating models, digital platforms, partner capability, funding and government systems interact.
• Adoption, Change and Partnership Leadership: Builds the conditions required for products to be understood, trusted and consistently used, and forms productive relationships with technology providers, government teams, funders, researchers, implementers and market actors.

To Apply:

Interested and qualified candidates who meet the set criteria are invited to send their Cover Letter and CV (Maximum 3 pages) including 3 referees, on the online platform. 

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