Innovation Venture Builder Consultant

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WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, colour, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status or disability.

ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies, and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. We are currently seeking to fill an Innovation Venture Builder Consultancy position in the INKA division, based in Munich, Germany.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the United Nations frontline agency fighting hunger. WFP reaches more than 100 million people every day - delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with smallholder farmers, communities, and governments to improve nutrition and build resilience.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator was named by Fast Company as Most Innovative Non-Profit Organization 2021 for its work in identifying, nurturing, and scaling disruptive start-ups and innovations to end global hunger. Based in Munich, Germany, the Innovation Accelerator provides WFP employees and start-ups with funding, hands-on support, and access to WFP’s global operations. Through the Accelerator, WFP is leveraging unprecedented advances in digital innovation - such as mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and blockchain - and new business models to transform the way it serves vulnerable communities across the world. In 2021, Accelerator supported innovations that positively impacted the lives of 9 million people globally. Most recently, the Accelerator runs programs for external partners such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others

About the Project:

While Large Scale Food Fortification (LSFF) has been shown to be a cost-effective way of increasing micronutrient intake, several key challenges remain in scaling: donor funding for nutrition is comparatively low in general and specifically for LSFF; there are few financial incentives for businesses to adopt fortification; compliance monitoring is expensive and complex; there remains a need to demonstrate the link more strongly between food fortification and its impact on malnutrition; and lastly, there is no existing system to track fortification and its impact on public health.

WFP has identified an opportunity to leverage emerging digital technologies to develop systems whereby actions along the LSFF value train are trackable, traceable, and verified. WFP will implement a strategy that brings together these digital elements in a way that enables the possibility to measure and then value the impact that LSFF has on the end consumers of the fortified staple and condiments. Once a value has been determined for the impact that LSFF can have there is then a further opportunity: the tokenization of that value (and impact) which in turn allows for streamlined and innovative new investment opportunities.

The focus of the project is to develop, implement and scale tokenization of LSFF.

General Information:

• Job title: Innovation Venture Builder Consultant
• Unit: Innovation Accelerator, Innovation and Knowledge Management Division (INKA)
• Country: Germany
• Duty Station: Munich
• Initial contract duration: 5 months (extendable)
• Expected Start Date: 01.11.2022

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

The Innovation Venture Builder, reporting to the LSFF Project Manager, is expected to:

• Lead the development and implementation of to scale tokenization in LSFF, accelerating the path to scale

  1. Support the development, analysis and mapping of tokenization focus areas for the ecosystem
  2. Support the analyses of trends & future foresight including strategic implications of the intersection of Nutrition and Impact Investing
  3. Develop & facilitate workshops and events for donors, startups, and business units
  4. Scouting, evaluation and integration of innovative solutions to support the development of a new way of investing for Nutrition
  5. Implement and improve agile processes, defining priorities, limits, risks and costs work structured and self-dependent, actively identifying obstacles and address

• Guide innovations and Accelerator teams with investment readiness, and other innovative finance and fundraising activities to accelerate their path to scale and to advance toward Zero Hunger and other Sustainable Development Goals:

  1. Develop a deep understanding of the customers/personas and their focus areas to ensure we are working on the problems that have a high impact on them
  2. Become a domain expert, deeply understanding the landscape to solve for the evidence-based funding in Nutrition
  3. Identify the direction for the value proposition and lead it through the Problem fit phase and into the Solution Fit phase and beyond
  4. Communicate and share learnings with key stakeholders for continuous improvement
  5. Prepare to validate the value proposition and requirements for building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in the next innovation stage
  6. Plan for productizing and operationalizing the product

• Support and foster Partnerships and Collaboration:

  1. The Venture Builder will be responsible for working in collaboration with the team to design the project approach, shape the community of experts and engage with key government, private sector, international organization and civil society partners
  2. Manage and support the venture team to deliver knowledge products and define the value proposition
  3. Build a community of high ambitious actors across governments and international organizations
  4. Support in the development of a communications plan for the launch of the final product

• Contribute to the strategic and organizational development of the Innovation Accelerator’s strategy deployment and operations:

  1. Provide analysis & content preparation (data on projects, PowerPoint presentations, briefs, etc.) for corporate priority topics and management meetings
  2. Participate and carry out discussions with colleagues in other divisions or external stakeholders on topics related to innovation
  3. Support other core processes of the Innovation Accelerator (e.g. innovation sourcing; innovation bootcamps; sprint programme; thought leadership; scale-up enablement; innovation services; knowledge management) as required
  4. Support the Head of the Innovation Accelerator and the Director of INK with any other activities as required

REQUIRED SOFT SKILLS | WFP COMPETENCIES

• Experience and interest in Tokenization, Blockchain and Decentralized autonomous organizations a plus.
• Passion and understanding of technology innovations (e.g. mobile apps, blockchain, artificial intelligence) and business model innovations (e.g. innovative finance, sharing economy).
• Substantial experience in building a new digital business, business unit or as an executive in a startup ecosystem.
• Worked or led cross-functional teams/ projects in a hands-on way.
• Experience working in a large scale-organization or with a client/in partnership with a large-scale organization.
• Proven track record of driving products and projects - effectively delivering impactful elements of projects in a fast-moving environment, ideally for new businesses, new business models, start-ups etc.

• Able to generate new and original solutions to complex problems and to design new product ideas.

• Strong conceptual thinking to develop new strategies & innovative products and projects.

• Able to interact with a broad range of stakeholders and external audience with maturity and tact.
• Excellent communication/presentation skills, with the ability to write strategy documents, to develop business plans and to write and deliver presentations.
• Collaborative spirit, able to partner with a wide range of people at all levels and across different cultures and to act with credibility and diplomacy.
• Self-motivated and able to work with a high degree of autonomy.
• Sets high-level of ambition for the project and own work to achieve impact for the hungry people we serve
• Fully committed and motivated to achieve the aims of the UN World Food Programme.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Education: Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree a plus.
• Experience: At least 5 years of progressively responsible international experience in a product role, including in a start-up or innovation accelerator, innovations in private businesses, or innovations in the humanitarian or international development sector. Experience as a venture builder has built and/or scaled a business and continues to do so with successful exits or played this role in a large organization
• Languages: High proficiency in oral and written English. Fluency in German is highly desirable. Intermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish) or Portuguese (one of WFP’s working languages) is a plus.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

WFP offers a competitive compensation package that will be determined by the contract type and the selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.

Please visit the following website for detailed information on working with WFP website.

Click on: Our work and Countries to learn more about WFP’s operations.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

Closing date: 20 October 2022

VA Reference no: 172950

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All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs, job requirements, merit, and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse, all forms of discrimination, any kind of harassment, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. Therefore, all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.