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Venture Builder (Export Manufacturing)

Africa Jobs Fund · Remote, Africa preferred · Full-time

About AJF

The Africa Jobs Fund catalyses high-impact companies that can dramatically boost incomes for people in Africa. We focus on two areas with the biggest potential to move the needle: export manufacturing and international labour mobility. We intend to mobilise $100m towards these spaces over the coming years, with which we aim to create $50bn in income gains for African workers and double the lifetime incomes of over 250,000 low-income people. You can read our full thesis and impact model on our website.

We venture-build new companies (identifying high-impact opportunities and sourcing talented founders to build them), and we make catalytic investments in existing companies. Not only do we intend to have a huge direct impact on hundreds of thousands of lives, but we also hope to shift the development (and startup) conversations in Africa towards approaches that effectively and durably increase incomes at scale.

We’re a very small team, and we’re moving fast. You’ll work directly with the co-founders with enormous autonomy from day one. We are looking for someone who is exceptionally talented, impact-motivated, high-agency and hardworking.

The role

This role is focused on our export manufacturing pillar: building the companies that put African workers into formal, productive factory jobs.

Industrialisation is the only route countries have ever taken to become rich, short of finding oil. Britain started by exporting textiles in the 1780s and China in the 1980s, with many countries in between, but all of them climbed the ladder by exporting increasingly complex value-added products to global markets. A formal manufacturing job typically doubles the income of a worker coming out of informal or subsistence work. Your job is to make more of that happen.

You will autonomously find, build and fund several new export manufacturing companies every year. You own each one end to end: spotting the opportunity, finding and convincing the founder, building the company alongside them, structuring and making the investment, and then supporting them hands-on as they scale. You’ll run projects from first conversation to investment yourself, with just a (quick) final approval from management. This is not a mid-level support role. You are the person making the calls.

To be clear, this is also not an investment job. You’ll need to be hugely proactive in helping to build companies, constantly exploring new projects and making new investments, not sitting back and evaluating pitches.

You’ll spend your time on:

  • Sector and market scoping. Figure out which sectors, products, and geographies we should focus on. Speak to international buyers, sourcing agents, factory operators, and industrial park managers on the ground to assess where the real opportunities and bottlenecks are, whether that’s garment assembly in Ethiopia or horticulture processing in Kenya.
  • Founder sourcing and conviction-building. Find potential founders and convince them of the impact of export manufacturing and why they should build a company with us. This isn’t just sourcing; you’ll have to persuade exceptional people to take on this challenge with us (experienced factory operators, diaspora manufacturers, established producers looking to expand into Africa), while also assessing them as potential investments.
  • Investment assessment and structuring. Assess investments, develop investment cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs), and structure deals. You might be deciding on a revenue-based financing model vs equity, or modelling the future income gains that a particular factory can create as it scales its workforce.
  • Company building and portfolio support. Build with our companies before and after investment, make connections into our network, and help them scale. We don’t run training programmes or share abstract insights; this will concretely be helping founders build their companies 0 → 1, e.g. flying out to an industrial park to vet a site and its power and logistics, or opening doors to international buyers.

The pace is quick and the bureaucracy is minimal. We aim to fund at least one new project every month across the fund. As you grow in the role, we will keep giving you more responsibility and autonomy. The ceiling on this role is very high for the right person.

Who we’re looking for

We will not hire anyone who doesn’t meet all of the following:

  • Exceptionally talented and intelligent. You can think about hard problems deeply, absorb information quickly and generate insightful analyses.
  • Problem solver. You’re excited about taking on new challenges every day. You’ll constantly be tackling new and different tasks and you should find that energising rather than uncomfortable.
  • Hardworking.This is not a 9-5. We’re a small team with a huge mission and we work hard.
  • Mission-driven. You’re driven by a real desire to have a positive impact in an evidence-driven way.
  • Results & evidence-focused. You don’t just care about working in impact, you care about working on the projects that are most likely to yield results. You understand why export manufacturing is one of the most promising routes to increase the quality of life for low-income people.
  • AI-native. You regularly use the best AI tools to automate your work and rely on them to optimise your workflows.

Background and experience

We’re looking for ex-founders or senior operators. What matters is that you have built or run something real, and that you know how to move fast and execute.

  • You’ve founded a company, or operated at a senior level in one. You’ve carried real responsibility for outcomes: a P&L, a plant, a business line, a company.
  • Direct experience in manufacturing. Export manufacturing is ideal, but manufacturing more generally counts: light manufacturing, agri-processing, assembly, or something else. You should know what it actually takes to run a production operation.
  • Strong experience working in Africa.
  • 5–25 years of experience. We’re flexible on seniority level; we care more about finding exceptional people.

Bonus experience. These are not required, but would be great to have:

  • Experience in investment, structuring deals, or VC. Valuable, but not a requirement.
  • Language skills. French would be most valuable, but Portuguese, Mandarin, Arabic, and other sourcing- and buyer-market languages are all a bonus.
  • Academic grounding in development economics and a working understanding of cost-effectiveness analysis.

Compensation, location, and logistics

  • Competitive compensation appropriate for the role. (We’re flexible on the exact scope of work and level of experience because we want to find exceptional people, and compensation will reflect that.)
  • Remote, with a preference for candidates based in Africa.
  • Travel across Africa and to buyer and sourcing markets.

To apply

Complete and submit the form below and tell us why you are interested in the Africa Jobs Fund and the role.

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