A consortium composed of 3 leading actors is launching the very first venture studio in Central Africa. Our ambition is to identify, support, and finance the next generation of entrepreneurs, who will be creating value on the continent and impacting the lives of thousands of Africans. To do so, we are looking for an experienced and ambitious Lead Venture Architect to join our team in Kinshasa.

As a Lead Venture Architect, you will take on a leadership role in our Venture team. You will be responsible for developing and implementing key components of our ventures’ vision and strategy, including building the complete business model, developing the marketing, and pricing approaches, designing an operational model for new companies, etc.

The Lead Venture Architect will collaborate with team members from multiple disciplines to create exciting and attractive value propositions for the market. You will work across disciplines to determine the fastest path to test, learn, and succeed. Your analytic strength will be critical in developing data-based insights and building the venture's first go-to-market and commercialization plans.

You'll also be drawing together the team's insights and progress into pitches for future investors.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ROLE

• Lead a team of Venture Architects and Entrepreneurs by inspiring, coaching, and supporting them.
• Conduct the discovery and testing of new business ideas and opportunities.
• Plan the design and execution of the ventures by defining the operational and commercial structures and strategies of the ventures.
• Guide the development of the ventures with the team and partners (corporates, academia, development partners, etc.) and communicate with different stakeholders.

DAILY AND MONTHLY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Search for new business ideas and turn them into attractive business concepts.
• Manage a cross-functional team to build and launch new ventures.
• Help team adopt agile process to eliminate waste of time and resources.
• Define & concretize the field of opportunity.
• Develop the core value proposition of new businesses.
• Transform new ideas and concept into commercial and operational blueprints of a new business (target operating model).
• Contribute to building of a comprehensive business perspective.
• Collect and prioritize critical business and risk assumptions.
• Develop an early feedback system for continuous feedback, learning, and iteration for ventures, balancing value creation with the quality of products and services.
• Create go-to-market strategies for the ventures (with the Growth Marketing team)
• Manage relationship with key commercial stakeholders - outlining investment path to product market fit.
• Explore investment, business, and collaboration opportunities.
• Pitch new ventures to future investors, technical and commercial partners.
• Find, train, and grow a local team to reinforce the venture building team.
• Support the management of operational aspects for new ventures.

SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Master's degree (postgraduate, M.B.A.)
• Previous experience with high exposure to entrepreneurship such as start-up, venture capital or start-up accelerator roles
• Personal experience as a founder and entrepreneur with exposure to multidisciplinary teams
• Proven track record in strategy development, business planning, projections, economic modelling, design or product development expertise, product prototyping, and testing
• Proven ability to implement successful solutions or products in an early-stage start-up environment.
• Experience launching managing and scaling IT or tech startups, with a successful series A fundraising round
• Relevant experience in corporate structure, governance, and the legal side of building a business
• Knowledge of Design Thinking, Lean Start-up, and Agile Development principles
• Familiarity with some of the following fields is welcome since cross-functional communication is key to our success: Service Design, Software Development, Interaction Design, Performance Marketing, Change Management, and Product Management
• Full working proficiency in both English and French is required.
• Proficiency in Lingala or +3 years of work experience in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
• Resident or holder of a valid work permit in DRC.

HOW TO APPLY

Please submit your CV and cover letter to recrutement@haskeventures.com. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted about the following steps of the recruitment procedure.