Data & Learning Manager Job at Ongoza

About Ongoza

Only 1 out of 10 youth entering the Kenyan labour market every year has a chance to secure a formal job. With even college graduates taking 4 years on average to secure employment, many youth start small businesses but don’t have the skills, structure, or connections they need to grow.

Ongoza recruits early stage high-growth young entrepreneurs and provides up-to-two years of customized strategic business advisory at a subsidized rate. After 3 months, our entrepreneurs become eligible for low-cost debt financing through our exclusive partnership with Key Partners, Ltd.

Our team of 13 has ambitious growth targets and within five years, we plan to deliver services to 500 entrepreneurs per year and in turn create jobs for thousands of young Kenyans, with transformational effects on upward mobility of youth and the larger society.

About the role

Your role is to develop, manage, and implement Ongoza’s learning agenda and data infrastructure to help us make smarter decisions, iterate our advisory service approach to deliver even better value to entrepreneurs.

You will be Ongoza’s data champion and a core decision-making influencer, responsible for building a culture of data-driven decision-making across the organization.

The Data & Learning Manager will work closely with the Manager in charge of Ongoza’s Advisory Services but collaborate across the organization as the primary person responsible for consolidating Ongoza’s data, doing statistical analysis, developing internal A/B testing procedures, and providing strategic recommendations.

Responsibilities           

Strategic Leadership (20%)

• Relentlessly pursue a vision for Ongoza as a data-driven and evidence-based organization
• Build a culture of both quantitative and qualitative data-driven decision-making across Ongoza, in all departments and at all levels.
• Together with management, identify and distill key questions about our services, programs and approaches that need examining to drive up effectiveness and efficiency.
• Using a hypothesis-driven approach, update existing assumptions and design A/B experiments in close collaboration with all departments
• Build out and provide oversight to a research and learning team as Ongoza grows.
• Compile testimonials and impact reports for external audiences (potential clients, partners, and supporters) that demonstrate Ongoza’s effectiveness
• Together with the team think through ways of increasing data reporting by our entrepreneurs.

Technical (80%)

• Perform quantitative and qualitative data analysis on a regular and ad hoc basis, understand trends, and provide insights on client behavior and business performance to the senior team
• Enhance data collection procedures to include information relevant for building analytic systems
• Update and improve software solutions to refine data collection
• Implement MIS and dashboards that are simple, intuitive, and provide real-time feedback
• Consolidate and update Ongoza’s evaluation framework, including indicators for client growth and Ongoza’s internal performance
• Develop and implement improved Ongoza baseline, mid-term, and end-term surveys
• Process, clean, and verify the integrity of data used for analysis
• Maintain an up-to-date understanding of best practices in the field through consistent monitoring of Ongoza’s competitors, research conducted into field-wide learning initiatives (including GALI, ANDE) and other relevant management literature
• Support the Ongoza team and clients in measuring progress, learning from joint successes and failures in creative ways that contribute to building a body of knowledge unique to the scaling of youth social enterprise in Kenya

Please note other responsibilities may be required based upon the growth of Ongoza.

Qualifications

• 3+ years experience in a similar position building data infrastructure, business intelligence, or M&E systems and synthesizing results into strategic recommendations. Private sector experience preferred
• Proven success and experience in building an improvement-driven culture and engaging others in making decisions based on data or evidence in a positive and encouraging way.
• Competency in both quantitative and qualitative data analysis, including effective survey design
• Good scripting and programming skills: familiarity with common data science programming languages (R, Python, etc.) and relevant statistical analysis tools (Stata, SPSS, etc.).
• Mastery of Excel necessary, data visualization tools a plus
• Good applied statistics skills, such as distributions, statistical testing, regression, etc.
• Experience working with youth and/or business development services a preference
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English (Swahili a plus)

About YOU

• You believe in our vision and mission – the power of youth-led social businesses to transform Kenya.
• You love data. Things just don’t make sense to you unless there is evidence and numbers to go alongside as justification. You love playing with and synthesizing data sets to discover the hidden trends. You get excited about helping others love data too.
• You are a systems builder. You are process-oriented and always looking for ways to improve systems to avoid solving the same problem twice. You not only understand how data sets can be organized in the most effective way, but you’re excited about building those structures.
• You thrive in an entrepreneurial environment. You are an independent self-starter who flourishes in a changing environment and can manage yourself. You have excellent collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• You make things happen. You have a proven track record of meeting targets on time and within budget. You are creative, solutions-oriented, and willing to put in the time it takes to do a great job. You follow through.

Why join Ongoza:

• We are ambitious and purpose-driven. We’re working towards building the most effective consultancy in Kenya for promising micro- and small-entrepreneurs.
• This is an agile and fast-paced environment. We constantly push for innovation and improvement in what we do and how we do it. If you like taking initiative and believe in continuous improvement, this is your place.
• We are a collaborative team with little hierarchy where everybody’s ideas count. We have fun in the office, people take charge of organizing their working hours, and we have a beautiful garden and open-plan office.
• Our work is inspiring and rewarding. You will see it in the growth of small businesses more and more every day.

How to Apply

Fill in the application form under this link: http://bit.ly/JoinOngozaData

You will be asked to submit your CV or resume at the end of the form. Make sure it’s no longer than 2 pages and tailored to this role.

The screening process will include case studies, interviews and personality tests and give you a chance to understand us and the role better. We will ask for references.

Selection on a rolling basis until filled.

Selection process in collaboration with edge