The Ugandan Jobline

Job Title:  Product Development Manager

Organisation: Tugende

Duty Station: 
Kampala, Uganda

About Tugende:

Tugende is a for-profit social enterprise providing asset and SME finance, leasing, insurance, and financial literacy to new customers, and consumer finance to qualified existing customers. 

It was formally established in 2012 in Uganda and is a technology-enabled asset financier of income-generating assets for proven entrepreneurs, using a lease-to-own product to offer an affordable path to ownership of these assets. Tugende empowers customers unable to access formal credit, and has financed over 27,000 customers.

About the role:

Tugende is quickly
expanding ownership opportunities to new assets, such as motor vehicles,
refrigerators, and boat engines. Tugende is also building related services to
support clients as they work to own these assets and maintain them after. The
Product Development Manager will execute the company’s product development
strategy by performing these key duties:

·        
Managing
the entire product development cycle; researching opportunities, designing
concepts, setting prices, testing viability, and standardizing processes to
prepare products for scale.

·        
Maintaining
open communication lines across all stakeholders, developing strategic
partnerships targeted at impact and growth, and building trust with our
customers and their communities.

·        
Supervising
and developing a distributed team to achieve the company’s product
diversification targets

Key duties and responsibilities:

·        
Execute
Tugende’s product development strategy.

·        
Support
the development of a team of 10+ people. Grow the department to meet the
company’s product diversification needs.

·        
Conduct
comprehensive cost/benefit and profit/loss analyses to channel resources
towards highly viable products.

·        
Supervise
co-current pilots across different locations and demographics, coordinating
activities such as:

·        
Running
field surveys to research new asset and service-based market opportunities
across urban, peri-urban, and rural locations;

·        
Marketing
opportunities and building pipeline of potential customers;

·        
Conducting
affordability analysis and originating new leases;

·        
Overseeing
product procurement and distribution;

·        
Monitoring
repayments and maintaining a strong portfolio.

·        
Craft a
deep understanding of customer’s needs. Develop, test, and continuously refine
products to best support the customer.

·        
Build
relationships and negotiate fair terms with partners.

·        
Keep all
stakeholders informed of each product’s development, and document everything
learned including unforeseen obstacles, the strategies pursued to overcome
them, and potential future risks.

·        
Ensure
new products ignite financial development.

Note: This job description gives a general
guideline, and therefore does not include an exhaustive list of all duties and
responsibilities

Qualifications, knowledge, experience, skills and
qualification;

·        
A keen
desire to build responsible products that promote financial development.

·        
5+ years
of experience managing teams, setting strategies, and simultaneously managing
multiple projects with ambitious goals and timelines, with preference to those
who’ve worked in fast-growing startups, management consulting, or investment
banking.

·        
Strong
leadership abilities such as, high integrity, accountable for their actions,
deeply committed to the Tugende’s mission, supports the development of others.

·        
Ability
to quickly analyze complicated trade-offs, weigh current actions against future
results, and make strong decisions based on customer impact, market demand,
economic viability, and operational feasibility.

·        
A deep
understanding of financial metrics, such as profit and loss, return on
investment, internal rate of return, effective repayment, and PAR metrics.

·        
Experience
directly supervising remote teams in distributed locations.

·        
Experience
building and growing profitable business opportunities.

·        
Comfort
in low-income environments and ability to empathize with and gain trust from
communities with which we work.

·        
Strong
communication, presentation, and writing skills.

·        
BSc/BA
in business administration, sales or relevant field.

Personal Attributes and Abilities:

·        
Innovation:
develops new, better or
significantly different ideas, methods, solutions or initiatives within your
role that result in improvement of the departmental output and Tugende as a
company.

·        
Accountability: holds self and others accountable for all
work activities, research and personal actions and decisions, follows through
on commitments and focuses on those activities that have the greatest impact on
meeting measurable high quality results for the departmental success.

·        
Service
excellence: knowledge of and
ability to put into action customer service concepts, processes, and techniques
to access internal and/or external customers’ needs and expectations and meet
or exceed those needs and expectations through providing excellent service
directly or indirectly.

·        
Planning
and organizing: develops clear
goals that are consistent with agreed strategies; identifies priority
activities and assignments; adjusts priorities as required; allocates
appropriate time and resources for completing work; foresees risks and allows
for contingencies when planning; monitors and adjusts plans and actions as
necessary.

·        
Interpersonal
relationships: knowledge of and
the ability to effectively interact within and across departments/units in a
constructive and collaborative manner.

·        
Excellent
oral and written communication skills: understands effective communication concepts, tools and techniques,
ability to effectively transmit, explain complex technical concepts in simple,
clear language appropriate to the audience, and receive, and accurately
interpret ideas, information, and needs through the application of appropriate
communication behaviors.

·        
Professionalism
and maintaining the Tugende Employer Brand: maintains professionalism in all correspondence and being empathetic and
personable.

·        
Positive
attitude: maintains a mindset
of “getting things done” and finding satisfaction in developing sustainable
long-term solutions at all times.

·        
Flexible
and resilient: willingness to
travel, flexible in schedule and work hours, seeks direct feedback and sees
every challenge as an opportunity to grow.

Benefits

Meaningful Work:
Tugende’s work gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to earn a better living for
themselves and their families. We are changing East Africa’s asset-finance
industry by building a sustainable business that ignites financial development.
Join this movement!

Great Team: Tugende has a smart,
fun, and growing team of ~400 employees. We take our work seriously, but love
to joke and have fun. We regularly have fully-paid, voluntary team outings, as
well as fun parties for our customers. Our headquarters are in Kampala, Uganda
and we are rapidly expanding in East Africa.

Hours and
compensation: This position is for an ambitious, full-time employee who will
take on additional responsibilities and projects as they arise. Tugende offers
competitive salaries and benefits that reflect a person’s contributions to the
company’s mission and growth.

How to Apply:

All candidates who
wish to join Tugende in the aforementioned capacity should apply online at the
link below.

Click
Here

For more of the
latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or
find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline

Related Jobs