Job Postings

Village Enterprise Fund (VEF) is Hiring a CEO

Village Enterprise Fund (VEF), a microenterprise organization whose mission is to break the cycle of poverty in rural East Africa by turning the dreams of the very poor into reality, by helping them start small businesses and build sustainable incomes, is hiring a Chief Executive Officer.

The Position

Village Enterprise Fund seeks an energetic, experienced, and goal-oriented Chief Executive Officer to lead this microenterprise organization to the next level in organizational capacity and funding.

Reporting to the Board of Directors, the CEO will be responsible for the activities, growth, and overall wellbeing of VEF. The CEO will further be responsible for the fund raising necessary to build the program’s outreach. It is critical that the CEO take the point position in forming a truly cohesive leadership triangle among the Board, the VEF team, and VEF’s funders.

Ideas and Impact

The CEO will be a catalyst for new ideas: working within the microenterprise field to understand emerging issues and opportunities, and collaborating with the staff to create and drive specific goals, plans, and communications vehicles to address these issues and opportunities. The CEO will be charged with creating impact strategies for VEF, gaining buy-in from the Board and funders, communicating with key stakeholders, and executing on developed strategies.

The VEF Board requires a strategic approach to managing the enterprise. The final candidate must be committed to developing new strategies for obtaining microdevelopment funding and be willing to measure the requisite personal capital to bring the added funding requirements to life.

The CEO shall quickly develop an efficient and positive partnership with the Board, attend all Board meetings, communicate effectively with the Board, prepare and deliver reports as requested, help set and lead agendas, and serve as an active participant in Board discussions.

Further, the CEO will be responsible for leading all aspects of VEF’s operations including:

• Completing VEF’s next multi-year strategic plan to deliver effective programs and measure results and impact while building the organization to the next level of funding.

• Working with VEF staff to set annual goals, for both the organization and individuals, consistent with the strategic plan.

• Creating an annual operating budget, managing revenues and expenses, and ensuring the financial and legal integrity of the organization, supporting best practices internally.

• Managing the VEF staff in the U.S. and their Africa-based head of Field Operations, to whom the in-country staff members report, to achieve these goals and plans.

• Achieving VEF’s development goals by driving expanded funding commitments from major donors (individuals, foundations, and corporations), and recruiting other funding sources.

• Expanding the Board of Directors.

Internal Leadership

It is crucial that the Chief Executive Officer provides the requisite leadership and coaching, and develops processes and methodologies that will assist in scaling work flow, and the entire team, as VEF continues to grow.

The successful candidate will be a highly collaborative leader, and viewed as part of a team, not simply its head, as a core value of the organization is collaboration with staff in all areas including career development. S/he must be participative, working closely with all staff members to advance their ideas, expand their horizons, and motivate them to success. S/he will be sensitive and emphasize teamwork throughout the organization but must not be afraid of conflict in working toward goals. Thus, the selected candidate must have a results-oriented mindset and a strong personal commitment to developing VEF’s platform of success in Eastern Africa, while leveraging the contributions of others in the process, and without compromising quality and creativity.

The CEO will be keenly aware of building a world-class team through the acquisition of significant talent. S/he will be a thought leader and be willing to work with the most granular aspects in scaling VEF’s reach.

Additional responsibilities for the CEO position are as follows:

• To create clear priorities and strategies for measurable impact.

• To provide executive leadership, coaching, and mentoring to the VEF staff.

• To provide guidance to the VEF staff and the Board of Directors that will ensure the highest level of quality work.

• To support VEF’s desire for greater visibility and expand its funding base through developing measured goals and plans, and managing the team to achieve them.

• To promote VEF’s initiatives through building strong partnerships with donors and other potential funding sources.

The Candidate

The successful candidate will be an experienced senior manager with a passion for serving the poor. S/he will have a minimum of 10 years managing multi-dimensional organizations. The candidate should also have excellent working knowledge of financial budgets, including their development and administration. Experience building a world-class organization and team is considered very important. Knowledge of the microenterprise field is also considered helpful.

In addition to executive management experience, the ideal candidate will have a demonstrated record of success as a proven leader in fund raising and enterprise development. A depth of experience working in a nonprofit/philanthropy environment is also highly desirable. Candidates will have a unique combination of public, for-profit and/or nonprofit experience, having successfully held a senior management position in one of these areas with substantial experience in the other.

The successful candidate will understand how to manage relationships and work with the Board of Directors. Experience working successfully with a Board in scaling an organization along with understanding members’ individual strengths will be helpful in raising money, convening experts, and hiring world-class individuals. The candidate must also have a solid understanding of quality standards and be able to articulate them to the team. S/he must be aware of new technologies and foster an environment of innovation to enable the organization to move more quickly and become more effective in the development and communication of its mission. The candidate must have a willingness and ability to be in front of the community, community leaders, national leaders, foundation representatives, and their staff for the express purpose of advocating VEF’s services, capabilities, and ideas.

The candidate must share strong values around VEF’s mission for serving the poor and a primary motivation to make a difference in the lives of rural East Africans through microenterprise development. This position requires a person with outstanding people skills, who is devoted to helping the VEF staff grow and expand their capabilities through his/her support, encouragement and mentoring. This calls for a visible, involved, and assertive individual who works closely with his/her team to expand their horizons and motivate them to success. The VEF staff should feel uplifted and enabled by their interaction with the CEO.

The candidate will have a track record of raising significant funding, including:

• Designing and implementing effective strategies to cultivate, steward, and solicit donations from existing donors and new philanthropists;
• The ability to guide and coach VEF’s development team to increase their effectiveness and skills in fundraising; and,
• A track record of generating creative ideas and engaging and enrolling new donors in an organization’s mission and outcomes.
• The successful candidate will must also possess the following operational qualifications
• Be a self-starter, accustomed to working in a fast-paced environment, and who can excel in a lean organization with limited personal administrative support.
• Have a 21st Century world view regarding technology and networking in order to help VEF develop its base of funders as well as manage its global network, projects, and staff.
• Experience managing across distant time zones with little or no overlap in the work day.
• An understanding of the challenges associated with staffing and running operations in the Third World.
• Experience providing strong financial reporting and controls, giving transparency to the Board, Funders, and certain staff members.
• Experience with the development and implementation of policies, procedures and management required to scale the organization from its current staff of 17 and 100 volunteers to the next level of growth.

The successful candidate will have the following professional and personal qualifications:

• Experience in developing and implementing multi-year strategic initiatives and delivering on those stated outcomes.
• An ability to involve and mobilize a wide variety of partners, including leaders and volunteers from the nonprofit, public, and private sectors.
• Seasoned management skills and outstanding influencing capabilities, and the ability to make sound judgments and decisions. This individual will lead by example, and have the capacity to attract, develop, and retain a team of talented people.
• Focused, solutions-oriented relationship skills and a blend of technical, conceptual, and analytical skills.
• An entrepreneurial spirit, ideally having worked in for-profit, nonprofit, and/or public sector environments.
• An interest in working in an intellectually challenging environment, with an emphasis on contribution and results.
• The flexibility to develop new ideas and approaches.

The candidate selected to fill this position must have superior leadership and strategic skills along with a demonstrated ability in developing new directions. The successful candidate must have a proven track record in recruiting and developing highly competent managers in previous situations.

Personal Characteristics

From a personal standpoint, the selected individual will be a bright, accomplished leader, who has the intellect, high energy, dedication, and unrelenting drive to lead a talented team in the microenterprise development area. S/he will be an analytical thinker, with strong strategic skills and have the proven ability to drive a team in new directions while providing the executional framework. This will call for creative vision and insight into new service developments that add significant value to VEF’s initiatives.

The successful candidate must have the highest level of integrity, a commitment to excellence, and a strong sense of personal responsibility in accomplishing the organization’s goals. Further, the successful candidate must manage by the guiding principles of care, dignity, and respect. This will necessitate balanced judgment, the ability to identify situations early and address issues in an action-oriented and timely manner. S/he must be decisive, tough-minded, and fair in order to provide the leadership to dramatically build VEF. The successful candidate must be able to inspire and maintain the confidence of the clients, staff, Board members, and funders.

Education

The most desirable educational background includes a bachelor’s degree from a respected university. An MBA, although not required, is highly desirable. Established and relevant business and organizational successes, however, are as important as any specific academic credential.

Location

VEF is located in San Carlos, CA

Compensation

VEF is prepared to offer an attractive compensation package.

Contact

Charles A. Pappalardo

Trilogy Search LLC

330 Primrose Road, Suite 402

Burlingame, CA 94010

650.685.2600 or 650.208.4000

More about Villege Enterprise Fund (VEF)

Over the past 20+ years, VEF has used a grassroots model of economic development that combines training, seed capital grants, and mentoring to help committed people launch small businesses. Their exceptional staff of African nationals handles program delivery, approves business applications, disburses funds, and recruits, trains, and manages their village business mentors in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The VEF program, combined with business owners’ hard work, makes upward movement on the economic ladder possible.
Through June 2009, VEF has launched 19,200 small businesses. Eighty-eighty percent of those businesses are still operating after one year and seventy-five percent continue beyond four years. Roughly one-third of those businesses develop other ventures and all participants gain tangible skills that they can pass on to future generations.
VEF’s zeal for rendering poverty obsolete is contagious. In the past 5 years, VEF has seen donations grow from $300,000 to $1,000,000. Most of their support comes from caring individuals who want to make a difference. Foundations, churches, and corporations have also joined the cause, and the combined pool of funds supported 50,000 people in fiscal 2009. Just think: The total cost of transforming one person’s life is only $20!
VEF plays a unique role among microenterprise organizations by:

• Focusing on people in extreme poverty who live in rural areas;
• Helping people who lack the skills and confidence to start a business without help; and,
• Providing a complete package of support, training, funding, and coaching, that is critically needed for impoverished villagers to build successful, long-lasting businesses.

For more information, visit VEF’s website:  http://www.villageef.org/

© 2010 SeaMo: Connecting the Microfinance Community.