Vacancy: Rwanda Operations Director

Salary: Competitive and dependent on experience

Term: 5 days (negotiable), 12 month contract with the potential to be made permanent

Location: Kigali with travel

Reports to: Scene Rwanda Managing Director

Application deadline: 15th October 2020 (interviews may commence earlier)

We are seeking an Operations Director to oversee Scene’s East African project work and play a key role to developing our business activities in the region. Ideal candidates should be enthusiastic about innovation and technology solutions for sustainable development, and have the experience to introduce new processes to start-up enterprises. You will start a new team for us in Kigali; be expected to travel for field work and business development activities in Rwanda, and in the central/east African region (DRC, Kenya, Uganda). You will form the key link between Scene’s African operations and our international team based in the UK.

About Scene Connect

Incorporated in 2011, Scene Connect (SC) is an award winning business developing innovative technology solutions based around renewable energy systems. We operate as a social enterprise, with our main focus in the Local Energy and Energy Access sectors in the UK, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Alongside our energy practice we are involved in Agri-tech and waste re(up)cycling projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. We have offices in Edinburgh, Liverpool, London (UK); Odisha (India) and now plan to open a branch office in Kigali, Rwanda. Scene provides consultancy and research services alongside our R&D business meaning we have unique market insight as both practitioners and researchers.

We’re looking for a candidate who buys in to what we stand for, both in terms of our mission and our collaborative approach to team working. Check out our projects to see what we’ve been up to in the past few years. We are a small, but steadily growing and ambitious business – we currently have around 15 staff across our offices.

Job Description

This role has three main functions:

[1] Overseeing the day-to-day management of our EMBLEM project; a minigrid system due for installation in January in Nyagatare district, involving several technical and business model innovations. This includes management of suppliers and contractors, customer service management, and regulatory engagement. We expect the candidate to embed themselves within the pilot community, understand their needs absolutely, and provide recommendations on how our system can be improved through active monitoring and evaluation.

[2] Business development and innovation scaling. Our ambition is to scale our EMBLEM project, and our company operations, in Rwanda and in East Africa more broadly. The candidate will play a key role in this by: working with UK team to define in-country operational requirements; leading market research and dissemination activities with industry and regulatory bodies, including attending and presenting at conferences; and identifying and securing business development opportunities.

[3] Scene has other energy and non-energy related projects in East (Kenya, Uganda), West (Ghana) and central (DRC) Africa and the candidate will be expected to remotely support these projects, with the potential for travel to project sites.

Ideal candidates will have an ability to create and maintain efficient systems of operation to support the business needs. You will need to be comfortable with working in a mission-driven start-up environment, i.e. self-starting and able/willing to take out a broad remit.

The candidate should be comfortable multitasking and working across geographies and time zones, using communication tools to work effectively with the rest of our international team. You should also expect to represent the company at exhibitions and events.

We are looking for candidates with 5+ years’ experience in renewable energy, preferably in rural contexts, from an engineering background but with relevant business experience, including business development.

Required Skills

·         Proven work experience in an intermediate or senior operations role within the energy sector

·         Comfort with electronics, and electrical engineering

·         Comfort with business and financial principles

·         Excellent communication skills

·         Management experience

·         Excellent organisational skills

·         Confidence to represent the company at events and industry forums

Desirable Skills

·         Experience with budgeting and forecasting

·         Business development experience

·         Experience in building sales channels

·         Ability to build a team

Qualifications & Experience

· Mechanical or Electrical Engineer with experience in business operations.

· 5+ years of experience.

· Excellent IT skills, including Microsoft Office and use of tools like GitHub and Slack.

To apply for this position please take a good look at our website – https://scene.community/ – then email your CV and a max. 1 page covering letter outlining why you would be a good fit for the position, [email protected] by 15th October 2020. Please put “Scene Rwanda Operations Director” in the email subject.

We may commence interviews before the deadline date so early applications are encouraged.