Private Sector Partnership Specialist

About Palladium: Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver a positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 3,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.

Project Overview and Role: The goal of the USAID Future Growth Initiative (FGI) under the E4 IDIQ activity is to increase employment and jobs through increased private productivity and competitiveness. The theory of change is: “For the number of jobs to increase, businesses must grow; and for businesses to grow, constraints preventing growth must be removed.” Following this logic, Palladium will focus on removing obstacles to growth at the firm level and will work to develop skills identified by employers or develop entrepreneurial expertise. Additionally, Palladium will work to address legal and regulatory constraints if they are determined to be significant inhibitors of firm growth. These efforts will result in the creation of new firms, the growth of existing firms, and new job creation.

Work performed under the E4 IDIQ is divided into three components:

• Component 1: Enterprises – Fostering Competitive Industries
• Component 2: Employment – Developing a Capable Workforce and Entrepreneurship
• Component 3: Enabling Environments – Creating Conditions for Jobs and Investment.

Palladium seeks a Private Sector Partnership Specialist for the FGI Task Order under the USAID (E4) Activity. Under the guidance of the Country Manager, the Private Sector Partnership Specialist will support implementation of the USAID’ Future Growth Initiative program in Kyrgyzstan. He/she will support FGI’s relations with the private sector as assigned and work closely with HQ and field offices to increase the technical support of private sector and ensure their continued increased support.

This is a full-time position and contingent upon contract award.

This Opportunity: The Future Growth Initiative (FGI) Task Order will increase the competitiveness of high-growth industries to provide jobs and incomes for Central Asia’s growing workforce, propelling the region toward self-reliance. FGI will transform market systems in ways that help high-potential firms and sectors grow, foster market linkages to match the demand for workforce skills with training offered to youth and women, link entrepreneurs to high-growth markets, and build more business- and worker-friendly policy environments and institutions to sustain private sector-driven growth.

In Component 1, in selected sectors, Palladium will facilitate partnerships with “anchor” firms in the selected sectors, i.e. firms with significant capacity to stimulate economic growth through developing large numbers and vertical chains of demand and supply sides of the market and enhance horizontal sector alliances of private sector firms including anchor firms, industry associations, and training and education providers. This will contribute to the realization of the identified market opportunities and help achieve scale in terms of new job creation and revenues.

Activities concerning partnership facilitation will include building a pipeline of prospective anchor firms, understanding their main constraints to growth, identifying opportunities on addressing their investment and advisory needs, building and maintaining strong anchor firms relations, drafting concept notes for program engagement, follow up and other activities as arise in the course of implementation of Component 2 activities. Activities in regard to facilitating collaborative alliances will complement anchor firm partnerships to tackle horizontal or cross-sectoral challenges that cannot feasibly be addressed by a single firm. Stakeholders in collaborative alliances may be formed and structured in different variations and sizes depending on the issue to be addressed. Palladium will include business development services providers (BDSP) in the stakeholder alliances and encourage them to unlock their potential aimed at building demand for commercial high-quality value-added business development services to the private sector.

Activities in both directions as described above will help identify gaps in the supply and demand sides of financial products and enhance expansion of market linkages between various market players. Palladium will work directly with access to finance providers and include them into collaborative alliances to develop new and strengthen existing product offerings with a special attention given to social inclusion of women and youth into their pipelines.

Location: The position is based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Reporting and Supervision: Private Sector Partnership Specialist will report to the Country Manager and coordinate her/his activities with the Team Leaders of Component 1&2 and of Component 3. Private Sector Partnership Specialist will be responsible for building and maintaining successful relationship with partners, including, but not limited to, anchor firms, business associations, government agencies, international donors community etc.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Build and maintain a strong pipeline and portfolio of anchor firm partnerships and collaborative alliances.
• Define investment and advisory needs of anchor firms and propose solutions to address them to Palladium including in Business Enabling Environment (BEE).
• Develop and draft concept notes of Palladium engagement for work with partners and alliances.
• Seek approval of concept notes and ensure formal closing of the approved engagements.
• Manage partnership engagements and ensure their successful implementation aiming at contribution to achievement of goals and objectives of Component 1.
• Cooperate with teams of Component 2 in regard to workforce development and social inclusion activities and of Component 3 concerning identification and solutions of obstacles in BEE.
• Perform monitoring and evaluation activities of Component 1 related to anchor firm partnerships and collaborative alliances.
• Identify local business development services providers and build successful relationships with them; seek their active participation in selected sector development activities.
• Identify access to finance providers which are able and willing to address anchor firms investment and other financial needs.
• Identify prospective start-ups and innovations and build and strengthen linkages among industry experts, buyers, and investors that can provide business plan feedback and link them to markets and capital aimed at rewarding innovations that can be scaled up to improve sector competitiveness.
• Identify business incubators and/or accelerators in the country to host sector-specific programming and scale the outreach necessary to achieve programmatic results.
• In partnership with incubators and accelerators, sector alliances and anchor firms, identify innovation challenges and grant opportunities to address those challenges.
• Liaise with other donor programs and private sector initiatives to facilitate Component 1 activities and expand market linkages.
• Track, monitor, evaluate and report on results after each activity with anchor firms and alliances.
• Other duties as assigned

Key Competencies Required:

• Bachelor or Master degree in relevant discipline (business, administration, finance, etc.)
• At least 5 years of experience working related to the field of ICT, food processing, tourism, light industry or other relevant industry.
• Demonstrated skills and understanding of the private sector development, investment facilitation and access to finance.
• Experience in developing public-private partnerships with large firms and business associations.
• Experience with women’s and youth programs.
• Ability to work under pressure and meet hard deadlines.
• Experience managing several activities at a time.
• Experience working with multidisciplinary teams with a focus on social inclusion.
• Experience reporting to multiple lines.
• Creativity, agility and team spirit.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Fluent in verbal and written English, Russian and Kyrgyz.

Professional Expertise/Competencies Preferred:

• Accountability
• Adaptability and Flexibility
• Commitment and Motivation
• Commitment to Continuous Learning
• Communication, Ethics and Values
• Integrity, Planning and Organizing
• Professionalism
• Respect for Diversity
• Self-Management
• Technological Awareness
• Working in Teams.
• Knowledge of USAID policies, procedures, and reporting requirements preferred.

Deadline for submissions: July 1st, 2022

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion – Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success, and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce. All job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include (but are not limited to) socio-economic experience, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.

Should you require any adjustments or accommodations due to a disability, or you are a neurodivergent individual, or for any other circumstance, please email our team at [email protected]. We will be in touch to discuss.

Safeguarding – We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients, and the communities we work with from harm.” We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process, including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.