Strategic Mentor - Office of Innovation

The UNICEF Venture Fund seeks strategic mentors to provide startup mentorship to its investees, supporting business model development, impact measurement, and scaling solutions. This long-term agreement offers fractional consultancy work to support early-stage startups in emerging markets, focusing on business strategy, impact evidence generation, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic mentorship to startups in the UNICEF Venture Fund portfolio, supporting business model development, impact measurement, and scaling solutions.
• Support categories including business mentorship, evidence generation and impact measurement, diversity, equity and inclusion, research and knowledge retention, fundraising and donor engagement, startup evaluation and sourcing.
• Maintain regular communication and mentorship with startups and UNICEF teams, ensuring alignment with workplan deliverables and social impact goals.
• Collaborate with UNICEF Venture Fund team members and startup cohorts to provide technical assistance and guidance.
• Contribute to knowledge sharing, capacity building, and training initiatives related to innovation and startup development.

Requirements

• An advanced university degree in social science, technology, international development, business administration, or other relevant fields. A first University Degree with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• Minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience in business strategy, financial modelling, impact management and evidence generation, particularly in early-stage innovation and technology in emerging markets.
• Experience applying lean methods of data collection and quantitative and qualitative evidence generation methods to produce actionable insights and robust evidence.
• Track record of providing mentorship and assistance to start-ups.
• Experience identifying and developing technical assistance tools for companies.
• Demonstrable understanding and ideally experience of how frontier technology can be applied to social impact solutions.
• Experience working with and for children in resource-poor environments and diverse international settings.
• Appreciation of and experience with open-source technologies, open-source business models, and cultivating open-source communities is a plus.
• Experience working in low-resource or emerging market contexts is a plus.
• Capacity and availability to maintain regular communication and facetime mentorship within the time zones of UNICEF programme countries and startups operating across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
• Experience with UNICEF or similar UN programmes.
• Proven capacity to work with collaborative teams across different locations and with different technical skills.
• Experience in knowledge sharing, capacity building, or training for innovation is desirable.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.
• At least 3 work hours of daily overlap with the time zones of the Venture Fund startup cohorts and Venture Fund team members (Central Europe Time 9AM to 4PM) to be considered for retainer or recurring assignments of more than 6 months.
• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts is desirable.

Skills

• Business Strategy
• Financial Modelling
• Impact Management
• Evidence Generation
• Lean Data Collection
• Quantitative Methods
• Qualitative Methods
• Startup Mentorship
• Technical Assistance
• Frontier Technology Application
• Social Impact Solutions
• Open-Source Technologies
• Open-Source Business Models
• Knowledge Sharing
• Capacity Building
• Training for Innovation
• Cross-Cultural Communication
• Collaboration Across Locations
• Working in Emerging Markets
• Working in Low-Resource Environments

Languages

English