Acumen is hiring!

[yassi...@gmail.com]

Associate Director, Investing in Agricultureat Acumen's team

New York or London

Acumen is looking for an Associate Director with 10+ years of experience in investing in the early stages in smallholder, climate resilient agriculture in developing markets. The role will help analyze the sector, our portfolio within it, and make recommendations on our next moves. This role is based in NYC or London. 

Apply here

At Acumen
We’re investors. A different kind of investor. We invest in people and companies working to solve problems for people living in poverty... essential products and services that bring more opportunities, more choices to millions. To date, Acumen has positively impacted 309 million lives by investing $137M in 139 innovative, early-stage companies in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States. But investment isn’t only about capital, we’ve been investing in innovators for years, connecting with emerging leaders around the world and engaging them in collective dialogue, moral inquiry, and skill building.

The Role
The role is to look across our agriculture investments and the broader sector and to derive or conceive of valuable recommendations that serve our investees, our own investment officers in the field, and their respective ICs and diligence. This is not an academic exercise. The ideal candidate can sort through a great deal of data and stories—data and stories about financial and social impact—and identify meaningful patterns. Not just any pattern, but the few that are really going to matter for our entrepreneurs and their customers: people living in poverty.

New York and London are not hubs of deal transactions. Deals come along now and then, but New York and London operate in service to the field, where Acumen’s regional offices lead on deal origination and execution. This role will play a part in supporting regional teams as they diligence, prepare, and execute deals. The focus of this role is to share what you know about the smallholder ag market, what we’ve learned from investing across many different regions over the years, and what each particular investment opportunity offers within that context. This is not an oversight role; this is a service role.

Aside from offering valuable recommendations to regional teams, accountabilities include:

• Design and implement a system for gathering, organizing, and sharing ag intelligence.
• Help shape Acumen's position and direction in smallholder agriculture: identify market barriers, propose partnerships, and drive our thought leadership 
• Support local teams to source, evaluate, and structure agriculture transactions. 
• In partnership with regional teams, add value to ag portfolio companies by building relationships with a network of advisors, identifying key challenges, mobilizing resources to address company objectives, and serving on ag company Boards. 
• Work with Business Development and Strategic Partnerships to understand their challenges in raising different kinds of capital and share what you are learning in the field. Are there gaps to close with your insights? How can you support the raise? Develop a network of Ag-focused donors to support ag-related raises. Support pitch and proposal development.
• Work with the Associate Director of Insights and Marketing & Communications to find the valuable ideas emerging from our agriculture work and frame them for wider publication.
• Represent Acumen agriculture and adaptation-focused activities, e.g., Climate Adaptation Summit, COP, etc.

This role reports to the Head of Investment Strategy. 

 Qualifications and Skills

• About 10 - 15 years of total experience with at least half of it in investing in the early stages in small holder agriculture in developing markets. Expertise in climate resilience, adaptation, and regenerative preferred.
• Undergraduate degree required, advanced degree preferred. 
• Perhaps you have experience running diligence and deals, sitting through diligence and deals as a co-pilot, studying deals for a particular aim, or supporting a raise with funders.
• A network of ag advisors, investors, funders (public, private), analyzers, reporters, or knowledge of the players.
• Ability to analyze, synthesize, and making meaning of data (sometimes data does not tell you where the opportunity is, sometimes it’s an act of imagination based off what data tells you).
• Anticipates future opportunities and consequences
• A disciplined, disruptive thinker who is open to challenge and feedback.
• Organized, direct and clear communicator. Can frame insight for different audiences for different purposes.
• Able to absorb and integrate senior-level executive challenge to ideas.
• Self-reflective and aligned with Acumen values
• Permanently authorized to work either in the UK, US,

Location 
London, New York City

Deadline
The deadline to apply is April 30, 2021. Since applications will be reviewed and interviews scheduled on a rolling basis, please apply as early as possible.