Founded in 2012, our client is a Social Enterprise, focussing on products for the rural market.

To achieve the rapid growth of our client, we are recruiting a dynamic and gritty COO who is excited to take a fast-growing and high-impact organization to new levels, alongside a passionate and hard-working team. The COO would build out two new departments – logistics and quality assurance – in order to ensure that we have the systems required to complete a tremendous scale-up and maintain quality. The COO would serve both a strategy and execution role, spend significant time both overseeing site operations and analyzing operational data in the office, and be a critical thought partner to the CEO and Board. This person would support country leadership as well as the heads of operations in each country to guide strategy, identify new systems needs to support expansion, and drive global special projects. We are looking for a leader who is ready to take on the impact opportunity and challenge of a career.

The responsibilities would include:

Strategy
 Work with CEO to determine and iterate on our rapid scale strategy, and directly support implementation
 Recommend changes to the business model to fit new contexts based on field learnings and see to the execution of those changes
 Initiate, manage, and implement strategic special projects (e.g. oversee ISO 9001 certification, manage new department creation, develop playbook for expansion, etc.)
 Manage research and development agenda to continuously improve floor quality and customer service
 Develop strategies to improve our customer satisfaction
 Develop innovative incentive schemes and training models that motivate field staff, especially masons, to consistently deliver quality service

Execution and Team Support
 Build out new “dotted line” support functions for logistics and quality control to enable the company to achieve rapid scale without sacrificing quality
 Develop the structure of the Operations Department in each new country as the company establishes the business there, and support the Country Directors in hiring these roles as they expand
 Support operations teams across all countries, including onboarding new operations hires, setting targets, determining strategy, and training the teams as needed
 Work closely with the Talent Associate to source and hire the right staff to support the growth of your team
 Build capacity of national and district teams to own their data and improve their efficiency

Continuous Improvements to Operational Efficiency
 Drive gross margins by finding areas to increase revenue and cut COGS
 Analyze data to assess areas of inefficiency in each district and develop innovative interventions to improve efficiency
 Identify and implement continuous process efficiency improvements through significant time with customers, drivers, sales reps, and masons

Systems Development
 Improve and implement systems to support scaling (e.g., construction planning, inventory management, supply chain management, quality control management, customer relations management, financial management, etc.)
 Oversee the management of and updates to existing Salesforce platform, integrating new software as necessary

Qualifications
 Excellent analytical skills and excellent detail orientation, including Excel modeling and data analysis
 Experience and skills in motivating and guiding a team towards results
 Passionate about international development and social enterprise
 Knowledge or experience with engineering, logistics, or supply chains
 Flexible and adaptable to changing environments; thrives in a bootstrapped culture
 Strong understanding of accounting, budget management, and financial management
 Hard working and gritty to push through challenges
 Ability to work on a variety of tasks at the same time and manage time
 Maturity and poise under stress
 Entrepreneurial attitude, creative problem solver, patient team-player with a sense of humor
 Experience with fast-growing social ventures is a plus
 Experience living and working in a developing country, preferably in East Africa, is a plus
 Several years (10+) of related work experience, ideally in management consulting or operations is a plus
 Graduate degree (MBA, MPA/ID, etc.) a plus, but not required

Are you interested in becoming a Chief Operating Officer in Rwanda? Apply now at the top or bottom of our page.