Strategy Fellow Job Vacancy at PULA Nairobi, Kenya
Job Overview
Strategy Fellow Job Vacancy at PULA Nairobi, Kenya
Strategy Fellow
PULA Nairobi, Nairobi County, Kenya
About Pula
At Pula, we are radically restructuring agricultural insurance, using technology to insure the previously unbanked, uninsured, untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide.
We work in over 17 countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2021, we have facilitated crop insurance cover to over 5.3 million farmers across Kenya, India, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Zambia, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Malawi. Since raising our Series A our operations have expanded globally including now Asia and Latin America.
Pula is a fast-paced space, constantly adapting to new opportunities and challenges and we are made up of a high-performance, multi-cultural team. We expect our team to value performance, results and professionalism.
At Pula, our values are:
Obsessed with results: We are responsible for our future and therefore we get things done!
Connect the Dots: We continuously identify different customer needs & business problems and build solutions that deliver value.
Have a Can do Attitude! We dare to do things differently to make things work.
We have each others’ back: We look out for each other & we share high quality, timely feedback that makes us better.
What you will be doing
The Pula Field Operations Department
Pula’s core product, Area Yield Index Insurance, is built on the unique ability to generate a unique index by collecting real-time crop yield data from the ground at scale and making sense of this data along with other inputs including remote sensing. Though hundreds of thousands of crop cuts and related surveys, we build an accurate, granular dataset of farmer’s experience each season, collected by over 2000 freelance enumerators across 15 countries in Africa and Asia.
Our physical presence on the ground not only ensures the most precise and comprehensive capture of both outcomes (yields) and causes (weather, field conditions, pest, disease, and farm practices), but is core to gaining the trust of farmers and clients that our conclusions are based on their lived experience. These operations are all conducted in close cooperation with clients (governments, agribusiness) and insurers to ensure we are at all times meeting their needs and building trust in the process through accurate, timely communication and coordination with all stakeholders.
The Strategy Fellow Role
Pula operates a rolling Fellowship program for talented individuals who can make an immediate impact on its business and product portfolio. Fellows will be involved in any and all aspects of our organization and are tasked with a wide range of differing projects. Our fellows work closely with our global and local teams to create impact and directly contribute to the solving of some of the most complex challenges in global rural development.
This is a unique opportunity for you to be part of a team that is helping shape the future through alleviating poverty while at the same time fighting climate change. You are ideally creative, process-driven, strategic and a tactical executor interested in serving smallholder farmers.
Key Responsibilities
Develop robust scalable strategies that enable Pula to become more efficient in its operations
Use research, data and insights to come up with effective solutions to our current challenges
Problem solving – help teams surface issues and develop tactical action plans to quickly resolve them
Work with various teams to formulate and test hypotheses, and arrive at high impact, realisable recommendations
Through research and insights gathering, share suggestions on expansion of product portfolio and geography
Project Management; run key strategic initiatives from ideation to completion. This will largely vary depending on the needs of the business.
What you need to be successful
Experience working for a top 5 management consulting firm seeking sabbatical project OR an MBA graduate or in pursuance of.
Experience working in a high performing environment
Experience building systems and processes to support organizational growth
Experience designing well-considered strategy (strategic), as well as successfully delivering projects
Ability to use data, insights to map out effective strategies
Rigorous and analytical
Entrepreneurial, curious and iterative, willing to be experimental by trying and testing new ideas
Resilient
Authentic and trustworthy
A love for the work we do at Pula
Professional fluency in English is required. French would be a plus
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 Commercial Director has a tremendous upside growth potential.
Market Leader: Not only is the opportunity massive, but Pula is by far the market leader in it’s category with 5.3m farmers insured as at the end of 2021.
Solid: Pula has been funded by leading venture capital investors (Omidyar Network, ACCION, MercyCorps) and global philanthropic institutions (MasterCard Foundation, CGAP/World Bank as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Pula closed a $6m series A funding in December 2020 in the right in middle of the pandemic a clear testimony of the opportunity that Pula is going after.
Respected: Winner of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2019, Winner of The InsureTech of the Award, Africa. Featured on TED talks, The New York Times, The Economist.
Impact and creation: This is a high-impact role, reporting to the CEO and Co-Founder, that offers a unique opportunity to bring the company to the next level, whilst developing new strategies, approaches and ideas.
Leadership: The founders & CEO foster a culture of transparency, respect, high performance, pragmatism, execution and personal development.
Purpose: It is rare to find a professional opportunity that offers accelerated professional development and a life purpose. Pula is going through a second phase of accelerated growth that will naturally provide professional development, whilst contributing to the financial stability of small farmers in the emerging markets.
Remuneration: Competitive base salary accordingly with seniority and experience, commission on closed sales and an employee share option plan that offers an attractive equity upside.
To learn more about Pula you can visit
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
How to apply
Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English.
Cover letters are optional. You can add one if there is any additional information you would like to share about your interest in Pula, the role or your experience. We review applications on a rolling basis.
Pula’s mission is to provide farmer resilience. To achieve this, we put our small holder farmers that use our services and the employees that provide them at the heart of everything we do. For that purpose, Pula was created to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
