Job Description

Novastar Ventures Talent Manager Jobs vacancy in Kenya 2019 

Novastar Ventures

We are looking for a Talent Manager!

About Novastar

Novastar is a venture capital fund manager dedicated to finding and growing the “new stars” of East and West Africa. We back early and growth stage businesses led by entrepreneurs with the capability and ambition to transform markets and sectors.

There is a vibrant ecosystem of fast-growing businesses offering low-income households access to affordable goods and services such as healthcare, agriculture services, energy, housing, education and safe water, or access to new opportunities as employees or producers.

If successful, these businesses have the potential to transform the lives of millions of people by satisfying latent demand, expanding market access, reducing costs and improving the quality of essential goods and services.

However, many of these businesses struggle to find investors who are willing to finance them both while they test and develop their business model and then pursue scale. As one of the early venture funds at scale in the region Novastar addresses this need, supporting businesses as they test their business model and growing with them if they are successful.

We also provide ongoing support (beyond financing) to the businesses to help them reach their full potential.

In so doing, Novastar aims to generate attractive returns for our investors and large-scale benefits for low-income households.

Novastar was formed in March 2014 and, having raised our second fund in October 2018, we are looking to expand our team accordingly.

We are currently a team of 14, have invested in 18 companies to date, and have recently expanded to West Africa!

About the role

As Talent Manager you will support the fast growth of our portfolio companies, proactively helping them build innovative and relevant human capital systems. You will quickly unearth key talent challenges they face, propose fast and effective solutions and closely manage their implementation.

You will act as an advisor and a coach in your areas of expertise and build a network of proven and trusted talent service providers available to our companies when the needs arise.

Success in your role will mean that our portfolio companies have the tools to create environments where exceptional talent thrives, and tackle talent challenges in fast and effective ways.

In addition, you will play a significant role in ensuring the creation and smooth running of the internal Novastar talent initiatives and systems, enabling us to build a highly skilled, committed and productive team.

Your responsibilities will include

Define the talent management support strategy (10%)

• Lead in capturing and fully understanding the context of our portfolio companies’ talent related challenges


• From the analysis, create a talent management support strategy that will be prototyped over a period of time


• Maintain a spirit of experimentation and quick adaptation; capture learnings and failures, and effectively feed this back to the talent strategy development

Build a dynamic pool of talent service providers (20%)

• Develop a deep understanding of talent service providers in the different markets to gain clarity on; their expertise, value, differentiating factor, quality of delivery, and understanding of fast-growing businesses


• Dynamically adjust the list of providers as they leave and enter the market and we gain experience working with them


• Act as the matchmaker that efficiently connects our portfolio companies with the right talent providers. Advise the companies in selecting the best and most relevant provider based on their talent needs.

Help companies build and implement innovative talent management approaches (50%)

• Responsible for scoping, resourcing, managing, monitoring and reporting on individual talent related projects


• Ensure there are clear and relevant Terms of Reference (ToRs) for all engagements, and closely oversee delivery and assess quality of outputs


• Depending on your area of expertise, create, introduce and drive implementation of solutions that address specific talent challenges for individual portfolio companies


• Identify patterns of frequent talent challenges and design portfolio-wide scalable solutions


• Identify best practices within the portfolio and facilitate the sharing of these via workshops, meetups and other channels


• Continuously keep abreast of market trends, proactively gather learnings and share insights with the Novastar team and portfolio companies to ensure they continue developing and innovating their people strategies

Internal talent support (20%)

• Assist in developing the Novastar talent systems. Keep evolving the systems to ensure they stay relevant and valuable to our context


• Responsible for the effective implementation of the internal talent management and development processes. Ensure that the Novastar team has the support to implement the systems consistently


• Identify training and development opportunities for Novastar team members


• Be part of creating a structured Venture Associate program for young, smart individuals looking to gain experience in the venture and social enterprise world.

Who we are looking for:

• You believe in the potential of ambitious entrepreneurs to transform millions of lives and are committed and eager to help shape this dream.


• You love the culture and dynamics of fast-growing organizations. Preferably you have been an entrepreneur in the past, have worked in a fast-growing organization, or are in constant contact with entrepreneurs. You understand how businesses work.


• You easily build rapport and relationships with ambitious entrepreneurs


• You believe in the power of driving change through people


• You have a proven track record in building impactful and efficient human capital solutions in any of the following areas; hiring, performance management, shaping culture, team dynamics, collaboration and communication, HR processes, coaching and talent development.


• You are a keen listener with great ability to “hear beyond the words”. You are naturally able to sense issues in a team and what individuals need


• You have the proven ability to create and execute results-oriented projects in a highly demanding environment and manage multiple projects at a time. You are known for your strong ability to make things happen


• You are able to monitor ongoing projects and produce regular reports to various stakeholders


• Past experience in selection of and managing service providers is an added advantage.


• You are able to build and maintain relationships with diverse stakeholders involved in a project and influence them towards achieving the common goal


• Your written communication is strong, including the ability to write project proposals


• You have a proven ability to quickly connect dots, see patterns, identify causes and propose impactful solutions


• You have at least 8-9 years of diverse work experience


• You have worked in East or West Africa and are conversant with local business practices


• You listen carefully and respectfully to differing views

You will fit really well at Novastar and enjoy working with us, if:

• You are highly proactive and take charge of your work. You suggest new initiatives and ask for support when you are stuck


• You have worked in multicultural and diverse environments and work well with people from various backgrounds, with a wide range of preferences and work styles


• You are a fast learner, embrace feedback, and are able to adapt and thrive in frequently changing environments


• You are comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity


• You are not surprised or deterred when things go wrong. You are a results-oriented go-getter with an entrepreneurial approach to every day challenges, and keep driving towards the end goal.

Wondering why you should join us?

Work at the next frontier of venture capital for the common good: We find and support exceptional entrepreneurs, proving that both large-scale benefits to low-income households and attractive returns to investors are possible.

Join a movement: We and our entrepreneurs are stubbornly optimistic, believing that sustainable solutions to big challenges can be found and working relentlessly towards building the future.

Incredible learning curve: We are a small, agile and culturally diverse team, and you will be involved in a wide range of projects and activities. As Novastar partners with entrepreneurial rockstars, you will gain incomparable experience and have unparalleled opportunities to grow personally and professionally along the way.

We take care of our team. Our Nairobi office is a large house in a beautiful, spacious setting, that reflects our family feel and ambition to do things differently. We invest in your personal development and health.

Our flat structure gives you a voice: From day one you will be part of conversations on investments and operations. We expect you to participate fully as we hired you for your insights. We give you autonomy and expect that you work with initiative and responsibility. Don’t join us if you need task-managing!

Want to apply?

The role will be based in Nairobi. Limited travel may be required.

Take a look through our website to see if what we do is truly exciting to you!

Submit your application under http://bit.ly/JoinNovastarTalent. Apply AS SOON as you see this. Selection will take place on a rolling basis

The recruitment process is carried out in collaboration with edge.

All communication regarding this process will come from accounts under @novastarventures.com or @edgeperformance.co.ke

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