Impact Manager, Hardest to Reach

Acumen is looking for an Impact Manager with a minimum of 9 years of experience. We are looking for someone to lead the impact measurement and management (IMM) of both pre- and post- investments. This role will build and manage the impact tools, processes and systems, manage the data collection and analysis, and build the evidence base needed for insights and reporting. This hybrid position is located in London with an expectation of working from the office 2-3 days a week. This role will report to the Chief of Strategic Initiatives.

About AcumenAcumen is changing the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies, leaders and ideas. We invest patient capital in businesses whose products and services are enabling the poor to transform their lives. To date, Acumen has positively impacted more than 500M million lives by investing $164M in 167 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.

About the Hardest To ReachOf the approximately 789 million people in the world who currently live without electricity, many will gain access through grid extension and off-grid solar by 2030. However, estimates suggest that roughly 215 million people will be left behind because they live in risky or remote, rural areas where investors have been unable or unwilling to go. In the last decade, there has been a steady increase in financing available for clean, renewable energy, but that money is largely directed towards wealthier nations. Even when investment dollars are directed to low-income regions, they are not always directed where the need is greatest.Acumen is establishing a key Strategic Initiative called “Hardest to Reach” (“H2R”), with the ambition to create and bolster markets and provide capital to off-grid companies enabling clean energy access in some of the least developed countries in Africa - an ambitious project to help achieve SDG7. Impact is central to this entire initiate and is formally integrated within the investment structures, further strengthened by an Impact Linked Finance component.

About the role
The Impact Manager will build and manage the impact tools, processes and systems, manage the data collection and analysis, and build the evidence base needed for insights and reporting. The role will lead on impact measurement and management both pre- and post- investments and the impact linked finance component. Practically, this involves data collection, monitoring and analysing the data per company as well as across the initiative, to optimise and evaluate progress and achievements.

In terms of collaboration and reporting, this role will be a core member of the Hardest to Reach team, report directly to the Chief of Strategic Initiatives, and collaborate closely with key Acumen staff including Acumen’s Head of Impact. The role will manage work by service providers including 3rd party data collectors, advisors and evaluators. It is an exciting opportunity for an impact professional keen to build, implement, manage and execute impact workstreams.

Responsibilities

• Impact tools: determine the right approach to tools and guide those implementing them (the tools for diligence, resilience, ESG and reporting), streamlining and aligning them where possible.
• Impact process and systems: In collaboration with Acumen’s Impact Team, develop and refine reporting processes and data flows, setting up the right platforms and coordinating between them.
• Data collection: managing the portfolio impact monitoring, quality assurance, and analysis to facilitate reporting.
• Internal capacity building: Ensuring tools, once developed, can be used by relevant team members, such as the investment team, and adding specialist input to their implementation and data (quality assurance).
• Tracking and refining the impact linked finance component.
• Build an accessible database of portfolio impact data: Cleaning and structuring relevant impact data and findings, in ways that make it easily accessible, update-able, and visual. Facilitate translation of data to feed into insights creation, reporting and evaluations.
• Evaluation and reporting: scoping, sourcing evaluators, and managing evaluations, and translating key impact messages for external sharing.

Skills and Qualifications

• Minimum 9 years of experience in Impact Measurement and Management (IMM), Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) or impact/ESG consulting
• Organized and able to set up efficient, streamlined systems for managing data, processes and information.
• Experience in Energy Access (preferred)
• Professional experience or personal knowledge of Sub-Saharan African context
• Ability to prioritize, select and (re)negotiate to measure what matters and bring key stakeholders along
• Ability to advance the work across a multi-regional organization and portfolio companies, across time zones and cultures
• An investigative mind with attention to detail and an ability to synthesize disparate and imperfect data to draw conclusions and propose recommendations
• Self-reflective and aligned with Acumen values
• Authorized to work in the UK

Preferred

• Experience with impact investing or social enterprises, particularly in the early stages
• Familiarity with trends in IMM including impact linked/performance based finance

DeadlineCandidates are encouraged to apply as early as possible as applications will be screened and interviews scheduled on a rolling basis.

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