Fellowship Lead

The Africa Jobs Fund is a philanthropic venture builder catalysing high-productivity jobs and income gains in Africa by building large, profitable and high-impact businesses. We focus on export manufacturing and international labour mobility, two of the most cost-effective mechanisms for raising incomes for Africans at scale.

We do this by sourcing exceptional founders and backing them with concessional capital and hands-on support to help them launch and scale.

We are excited to hire a high-agency operator to support two core workstreams at Africa Jobs Fund: (a) the Africa Jobs Fund Fellowship and (b) venture-building work across the portfolio.

Our Fellowship identifies and places talented individuals into real operating roles within manufacturing businesses. The objective is to give fellows hands-on manufacturing sector experience so they can help the host companies grow, lead new ventures within those companies, or ultimately create their own export manufacturing businesses with backing from Africa Jobs Fund. A key part of the role is to support the fellows in eventually building their own export manufacturing businesses.

Alongside the Fellowship, you will support the venture-building team on research, pipeline development, founder sourcing, investment memos, cost-effectiveness analysis, operational follow-through, event organising, social media and much more.

This role is ideal for someone early in their career who is ambitious and driven and wants to one day found a company or start an investment fund. You will get a huge amount of responsibility and autonomy in your work and will work very closely with AJF’s Partners.

We are not necessarily looking for someone who has had a ‘lead’ role before, we want someone who is early in their career but able to step-up into a position of real responsibility and own it.

This is not just another role in another fund. Like a lot of funds, we are rigorous in our approach, we have high expectations of our team, and we are constantly learning. Like some funds, we are very committed to Africa’s economic progress and building positive businesses, as well as have a bias towards action. Unlike most funds, we are extremely hands-on, up-close, and collaborative with our fellows and portfolio companies.

We are looking for someone who is:

• Both exceptionally talented and ready to work hard.
• Highly organised and able to keep multiple moving pieces on track.
• Highly entrepreneurial and a self-starter; we often deal with situations that are not fully defined — this is an opportunity for you to showcase your abilities.
• Comfortable working in ambiguous, fast-changing environments with limited structure and data.
• Curious about building businesses in manufacturing and/or labour mobility.
• Deeply impact motivated and excited to help build Africa’s future.
• Proactive communicator; comfortable managing relationships with candidates, founders, and companies.
• Ambitious for their own career.
• AI-native. You regularly use the best AI tools to automate your work and rely on it constantly to optimise your workflows.

You do not need to have deep experience in manufacturing, venture capital, or development economics. What we are looking for is very deep intellectual curiosity, the commitment and the ability to reliably and proactively see projects through to completion, and seriousness about learning.

The Africa Jobs Fund Fellowship is designed to build the next generation of operators and founders who can help industrialise Africa. By supporting the Fellowship and our venture-building work, you will play a direct role in shaping the careers of our fellows and enabling the success of our host companies.