Senior Manager, Innovation Fund

Department
:
Mobile for Development (M4D)

Team
: GSMA Innovation Fund

Location
:
London (hybrid working)

Position type: Fixed Term Contract until March 2028

What the hiring manager says

The GSMA Innovation Fund supports organisations using mobile and digital technology to create meaningful impact in low- and middle-income countries. This role will help us make far better use of what we learn across our growing portfolio. You will turn detailed evidence from individual grantees into clear credible insights for the public domain while building the intelligence and knowledge systems that allow us to understand portfolio performance spot emerging trends and respond confidently to donors and other stakeholders.

It is an opportunity to shape how the Innovation Fund understands communicates and applies its collective experience.

About the Team

The GSMA Innovation Fund team designs and delivers grant programmes that support innovative mobile-enabled solutions across themes including digital inclusion climate action energy access circularity and emerging technologies. We work with grantees donors technical specialists and partners across multiple markets. As the portfolio grows we need a more systematic way to connect information generated through grant delivery market engagement monitoring and learning and stakeholder relationships.

You will work across these groups creating a shared view of the portfolio and ensuring that strong evidence and useful learning do not remain confined to individual projects or teams.

About the Role

You will lead three closely connected areas of work: portfolio insights and public-facing knowledge; business and market intelligence; and knowledge management. The role is not simply about collecting information or producing reports. It is about applying strong judgement to identify what matters testing the quality of evidence drawing out patterns across projects and cohorts and translating complex material into outputs that are relevant to the Innovation Funds audiences.

Portfolio insights and public-facing knowledge.

You will develop a deep understanding of the work progress and learning of our grantees. Working with Innovation Fund managers monitoring and learning colleagues and marketing specialists you will identify credible stories findings and lessons that can be communicated externally. You will develop cohort- and portfolio-level analysis particularly for scale and sustainability ensuring that published content presents an Innovation Fund perspective rather than simply restating grantee reporting.

Outputs may include insight briefs portfolio narratives case studies thematic analyses presentations web content and contributions to wider GSMA thought leadership.

Business and market intelligence.

You will establish and maintain a reliable intelligence base on current and former grantees including their organisational and commercial progress fundraising partnerships geographic expansion product development user reach and pathways to scale. You will combine internal information with relevant external market intelligence to identify developments that may affect our portfolio and to sense wider trends across the geographies sectors and technologies in which the Innovation Fund operates.

You will turn this intelligence into practical portfolio views dashboards briefings and decision-ready analysis for colleagues and leadership.

Knowledge management.

You will design and maintain a practical knowledge-management approach that captures organises and scrutinises information about our grantees cohorts teams partners and priority topics. You will define common structures metadata ownership and quality standards so that information can be found understood and reused. You will make it easier to respond to donor and stakeholder queries with accurate traceable and current evidence while applying appropriate controls for confidential sensitive or personal information.

During your first year you will map existing sources and gaps agree a proportionate data and knowledge framework establish a prioritised portfolio intelligence view and produce an initial pipeline of strong public-facing insights. Success will mean that colleagues can retrieve trusted information more quickly leadership has a clearer view of grantee and market progress and external outputs demonstrate distinctive learning from across the Innovation Fund portfolio.

Key responsibilities

• Own an annual and rolling insights agenda that connects donor learning priorities portfolio questions market developments and publication opportunities.
• Synthesise qualitative and quantitative information from grantee reports portfolio reviews monitoring and evaluation financial and operational data and direct engagement with grantees.
• Test evidence challenge unsupported conclusions and distinguish observed results from emerging findings or hypotheses before information is used externally.
• Produce and commission concise accessible and evidence-based outputs for external and…