Head of Product

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African Development Choices (ADC) is a UK-based Social Enterprise on a mission to reduce poverty by empowering communities to make more informed choices in the management of public finances.

ADC’s purpose is to enable communities to independently meet their needs for essential services, such as clean water and safe sanitation and improve lives in Africa.

At ADC we encourage a working culture of seeking and giving input, showing and taking initiative, and commitment to the organisation and its purpose.

We now have an exciting opportunity for a volunteer Head of Product to join ADC

Main purpose of job: Build and manage a new product function tasked with designing and delivering tech products that meet business objectives and customer needs.

Division: Revenue

Department: Product Management

Position reports to: Chief Revenue Officer

Position is responsible for: TBC

Main duties & Responsibilities

We have identified at a high level the potential for a product that brings together information about people and services in the WASH industry. Your role will be to build a production function staffed with volunteers to explore this further, evolving the idea or identifying new ideas to explore. This includes identifying staffing needs and recruitment, as well as supporting the product function you build in market research, defining product strategy and overseeing delivery.

• Build a product function, with skills across the product & delivery domain, including product, design and engineering.
• Product lifecycle management from concept to end-of-life
• Translate business strategy into product strategy and conduct appropriate market research
• Translate product strategy into detailed requirements and prototypes
• Lead, define and communicate product strategy to all stakeholders
• Develop a product vision, roadmap and pipeline based on input from internal stakeholders, customers, market research and own insight
• Define product pricing and competitive positioning as appropriate, including potentialy free and freemium models
• Drive action throughout the organization to get products to market
• Plan and carry out product launches together with marketing team
• Provide product marketing with insights on key differentiators and messages
• Perform product demos to customers and develop relationships with key clients
• Manage all aspects of in-life products, including customer feedback, requirements, and issues
• Establish and lead a new product management function

Knowledge, skills and experience

Essential

• 5+ years’ experience as a product leader
• 5+ years’ leadership experience, including establishing and leading high-performing product management teams that deliver world-class products
• Proven track record of managing all aspects of a successful product throughout its lifecycle
• Proven ability to develop product and marketing strategies and effectively communicate recommendations to the executive and management teams
• Ability to understand complex product functionality, design and technical issues, in order to drive the right priorities, trade-offs, and resolutions
• Excellent client consultation and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to develop a deep understanding of client needs, and then address them
• Ability to actively take initiative and help set things up in a start-up environment
• Available to volunteer at least 7-10 hours a week

Desirable

• Experience working in an early stage start-up and gone through a scaling phase
• Passion for the start-up life and comfortable in a role with a little ambiguity
• Experience leading, managing and coaching successful teams in different geographical locations

What ADC Offers You:

• This is a volunteer, remote and unpaid position with the following benefits:
• An opportunity to transition to a permanent/contract role when we secure funding
• Professional learning and career development opportunities
• An opportunity to build on your work experience within your profession
• An opportunity to be part of a diverse team representing different parts of the world that is delivering systemic social change in Africa
• An opportunity to help shape a start-up social enterprise
• We can provide a work reference
  
  

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Here at African Development Choices, we celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our teams are made up of people from all over the world and we welcome all applications. If you are disabled or have a long-term health condition, and you require any reasonable adjustments for your application with us, please let us know by contacting recruitment@africandevelopmentchoices.org.