Tag: Linchpin

The hard parts

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

The parts that are uncomfortable

The bits that no one else really wants to do

The things that make you feel exposed

And stretched

And outside of your comfort zone

The things that make it clear that what you thought it was going to take to get this done wasn’t right at all.  The funding isn’t there. The strategy hasn’t been sorted out. The roles and responsibilities aren’t clear enough. The team is too small and it doesn’t have all the right skills.  We’re just not where we need to be, and fixing things is going to be a heck of a lot harder than we expected.

All this really messy stuff?

That’s why we need you.

It’s because it’s hard that the work hasn’t been done….yet.

Maybe the dragon isn’t the problem

~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

I just walked past a smiling blind woman – blond, straight hair, in her 30s and dressed for spring – walking down a crowded 5th Avenue street in rush hour. She and her golden lab guide dog were perfectly synchronized, and she was the picture of calm, serene confidence amidst the crush of people and traffic.

I wonder what it took for her to be able to do this – not just learning to walk with, communicate with, and trust her dog, but the courage and determination she’s showed at countless junctures in her life to get where she is today.

The thing about accomplishing great things is that it requires consistently making the decision to be brave, to show up, to overcome your own doubts and fears and the voices in your head. That fear is the dragon you have to slay each and every day.

The tricky part is that the dragon has allies. It needs them, because it knows that when you step into the arena, ready for pitched battle, it’s not hard for you to rev up your adrenaline, strap on your shield, and wield your sword for the big fight. The dragon fears that.

What is hard, though, is getting out of bed every morning to prepare for the fight. Here’s where the dragon’s secret allies come out: smiling cherubs with pointy horns hidden in their hair, cajoling you, teasing you, luring you into a stupor. “Do you really want to fight today?” “Think how dirty you’ll get, how tiring it will be.” “Things are fine the way they are now.” “Is it really worth it to put yourself out there?” “Stop rocking the boat.”

You ignore them, most days, but their chorus is seductive. If you let them, over time – months, even years – they douse the fire in your belly.

We can’t let that happen.

For those of you showing up in the arena every day, I offer you the choice to plug your ears to their Siren song.

And for those of you not yet showing up to fight, I implore you, at the least, to silence the peanut gallery commentary that saps others’ bravery and courage. If today isn’t your day to step into the arena, the amazing, powerful thing you can do is to seek out others’ moments of bravery, of insight, of courage, of grit and determination and moxie, and celebrate them.

If you see a flickering flame, protect it from the wind, add kindling to the fire until, eventually, it roars.

Because none of us actually believes that what we need in the world is less courage (or more pointy-headed cherubs).

Hiring a World-Class Marketer and Storyteller

~ Sasha ~ 4 Comments

What could be better than hiring the right person for a transformative job, one that allows them to use their skills, their passion, their energy and their knowledge to change the world?

I’m looking for someone to run all of marketing and communications at Acumen.  “Marketing” in the fullest sense of the word, the way Seth describes it as “transform[ing] the way you and your organization spread your ideas, engage with customers and most of all, think about what you make and why.”

I deeply believe that Acumen has a powerful story to tell.  And I know that telling this story in the right way to the right people won’t only be transformative for us as an organization, it will help the world understand that intractable problems can be solved, it will shift global conversations about dignity and inequality and connection, it will demonstrate the potential of a new breed of values-based leadership.

I’m guessing that the right person for this job has around 15 years of professional experience; is a thinker and a doer and a troublemaker in the best sense of the word; is someone who cares deeply, synthesizes easily, learns quickly.  You don’t have to be an expert in poverty or international development, but you do have to be a truth-seeker who cares about this work in real way.

Even if you’re not this person, I bet you know someone who knows someone who…..you get the idea.  So please spread the word.

I can’t wait to read the applications, because I know that I’ll be surprised and delighted and that I’ll learn a lot from all of you.  (If you do apply, please take a risk and shine).

Here’s the full job description, so you can just forward this post to the right people.

Or forward this link: http://acumenfund.theresumator.com/apply/KenPu7

 

Acumen – Director of Marketing and Communications

Acumen is hiring a Director of Marketing and Communications, a seasoned marketer who thrives on taking the complex and making it meaningful, visceral, understandable, and personal.  We believe we have an important story to tell about the transformative impact we, and the world, can have on poverty.  It is a story of innovation, of possibility, and of human dignity.

You are someone who cares about the problems of global poverty and of inequality, and you bring world-class talent as a marketer, a communications professional, and a storyteller and a thinker.  You understand that the future of marketing is about trust and relationship-building, about how an organization can represent and transmit a set of values in everything it does.  You are energized by the idea of digging in deep to understand what Acumen has to offer, and you have the skills and relationships to bring the latest thinking, tools, ideas and action to sharing our unique story with the world.

About Acumen

Acumen started as an idea. Thirteen years later we have a proven model that combines the best of charity and investing to change the way the world tackles poverty.

Acumen is changing the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies, leaders and ideas.  We were one of the early pioneers that created the field of impact investing.  Our companies have improved the lives of hundreds of millions of poor people by providing them high-quality, affordable water, sanitation, healthcare, housing, energy, agriculture and education.   We offer leadership programs that bring together the world’s best talent to focus their skills, capacity and moral imagination to solve the world’s toughest problems of poverty.   And we invest in the spread of ideas to share what we are learning, in order change the way the world tackles poverty.

We see each investment as a provocation, a chance to support entrepreneurs who dare to build solutions where markets have failed and traditional aid has fallen short.

See who is talking about us here.

About the Role

Reporting to the Chief Innovation Officer, this role requires:

  • World-class marketing and storytelling experience.  You have more than a track record in marketing, brand management, communications and storytelling.  You understand that marketing ultimately is about creating meaningful connection that drives action, and that a catalytic approach will accelerate the impact of our work by creating broader and deeper understanding of our values, our progress and our impact.  This will help us continue to lead our sector and be a beacon for what is possible in the fight on global poverty.  The chops you bring are in managing or advising big or upstart brands, in thinking strategically and in telling stories.  You are digitally native or know how to find and manage talented people who use video and online tools to create change.
  • Demonstrated capacity to develop, refine and transmit Acumen’s message to key stakeholders—our Partners, our Advisors, our peers, and our community around the world.  You are skilled in taking a rich, complex message and boiling it down to its essence.  Better yet, you have the audacity, imagination and skills to activate our teams around the world to systematically discover, raise up and share important and inspiring stories—stories from from the slums of Kenya, from the mountains of Pakistan, from smallholder farmers in Ghana or from the poorest state in India—to teach our community and the world about how to make real and lasting change in the fight on global poverty.
  • Strategic thinking, solutions design and internal/external evangelism. You are a highly strategic thinker, comfortable with sophisticated financial products and interested in the nuances of poverty alleviation, who will mine the richness of all we are learning and empower our global organization to share what we are learning in more exciting and visceral ways.
  • Exceptional writing and communications skills.  You will ultimately have the final word on all external and internal communications by Acumen and will serve as a key advisor to Acumen’s Management Committee and to the CEO.  You must be a strong writer who is comfortable managing and representing the multiple voices of Acumen.
  • A deep commitment to our mission.  We are looking for a leader with evidence of empathy, passionate curiosity, and a commitment to helping others. You have a demonstrated interest in creating large-scale change, and you have relevant exposure to work in the social sector, whether locally or globally.

Specific responsibilities include:

  • Evolve Acumen’s current marketing and outreach to create much stronger connection to and relationship with the Acumen brand and the values it represents.  Strengthen Acumen’s positioning as a go-to source for ideas on the role of patient capital in fighting global poverty.
  • Enhance Acumen’s brand salience, brand engagement, brand congruence and brand velocity. Help our key stakeholders understand what we do, why we do it, and how it’s relevant to them.  Ensure that they feel heard, and that they can meaningfully engage with Acumen and with our work.  Invite leading-edge thinkers into our work to ensure we stay highly relevant and innovative.  Create experiences that uniquely amplify our message and draw partners to us in a deep and meaningful way.
  • Create a system to surface, develop and publish compelling stories based on our work. Drive discovery of the best thinking at Acumen (using new or old forms of technology) and quickly transform these insights into stories that can be used to accelerate the work of  Acumen’s Business Development team, our Communications team, the Office of the CEO, and Acumen’s Country Leaders, accelerating our ability to raise funds, to share what we are learning, and to influence a broader conversation about new ways to solve seemingly intractable problems.
  • Oversee global communications, including all press and PR across all of Acumen’s geographies and all of Acumen’s digital properties (including video and online fundraising). You will lead and manage the team responsible for sharing our best front-line thinking and insights across five regions, whether through Op Eds and external media, thought pieces that move the conversation in our sector, or materials for communications with Acumen’s key funders, Advisors and Board members.
  • Provide direct support to Acumen’s CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz, and work with the Chief of Staff to the CEO to ensure maximum impact of her communications—whether written, in the press, or in public speaking opportunities. Continue to position Acumen’s CEO as a key thought leader in development and social enterprise, positioning her for increased visibility in global conversations on the role of capitalism, philanthropy and markets in creating a more inclusive economy.
  • Lead a matrixed global team of eight, including a core team of four professionals based in New York

Qualifications & Characteristics

Passion, entrepreneurial spirit, and rejecting the status quo are just a few of the things that Acumen team members have in common.  They also share a commitment to, and enthusiasm for, the organization’s mission and business model, coupled with respect for our core values: generosity, accountability, humility, audacity, listening, leadership, integrity, respect.

Ideal candidates for this role also have:

  • 15+ years of work experience, ideally a blend of private, social or non-profit sector.
  • Highly creative, comfortable with ambiguity, interested in big, thorny questions.
  • Strong network of relationships with thought leaders in your space, and the capacity to effectively enlist and engage leading thinkers and doers to support our work.
  • The ability to thrive in an ambiguous environment, provide leadership and direction to the team when there are curve balls, and to lead with inspiration, resilience and resolve.
  • High capacity to collaborate across matrixed teams, as well as the ability to exert influence both with and without formal authority.
  • Eagerness to travel globally across the developing world (anticipated 10-20% travel).
  • Permanent authorization to work in the United States.

Compensation

Acumen offers competitive compensation for the international development sector, commensurate with experience. Compensation includes a base salary, an annual bonus based on achievement of individual and organizational goals, health insurance, and an employer-sponsored contribution to a defined contribution retirement program.

Location

This role is based in Acumen’s New York City office at 15th Street and 9th Avenue.

 

For Consideration

Please apply online through this link to submit your resume and answer the following two questions. Feel free to have your written responses refer to websites / videos / published work online.

  1. Introduce yourself
  2. Describe three brands you have worked on and what you did to make them succeed

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, so candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.

How do I get a job in impact investing?

~ Sasha ~ 6 Comments

WSIC2013I had the chance to speak at the Wharton Social Impact Conference this past Friday.  It was fun, engaging, and energizing to see so many students so immersed in this space.  Indeed Wharton’s Social Venture Fund – I met the team while on campus -has 35 members (selected from more than 100) who give 5-10 hours a week to source, diligence and recommend potential impact investments across numerous sectors; and they have just raised enough funding to make early stage investments in a number of these companies for the next few years.  Great stuff.

Inevitably, one of the questions one gets asked in these sorts of settings – directly and indirectly – is: “how do I get a job in impact investing?”

I found myself answering the question two ways.

If the question meant, “if I want to be the person doing the impact investing (in the developing world?), how do I get that job?”  in which case the answer is pretty straightforward: build experience both in deploying capital directly in private transactions (e.g. in private equity or venture capital) and have direct operational experience in the geography where you’d like to deploy that capital – ideally working in the sector in which you’d like to invest.

And then try really hard to get picked for the job that you want.

The problem is, I think it’s way too early to be asking that question, because it fundamentally overestimates where we are in the evolution of this industry.  “Impact investing” is a nascent, messy, ill-defined space that’s somewhere near late toddlerhood.  We can barely agree on definitions of what is and is not an impact investment, and we’re a long way off from being properly organized as an industry.  For something so new, with so many talented people excited and looking to make an impact, the orientation cannot be around how to get picked for the tiny number of jobs that exist for the massive number of amazingly qualified applicants.  Instead, the opportunity is to create a job, a role, a set of experiences that will allow you, over time, to help us all shape and move and define this new space.

Ultimately, letting go of the notion of a job search broadens your opportunity set in two ways.  First, it forces you to recognize that the odds of getting picked for that 1 in 1,000 job you think you want are not good enough odds for someone as capable as you are.  And this is good news, because the moment you realize it is the moment you can take on the work of shifting your orientation from job-seeking to job-creating, which I’d rather you do sooner than later because it keeps you in the driver’s seat.

Second, once we recognize how early it is in the creation of this new ecosystem, we can begin to understand that people who will define this new space won’t just be investors, they will also be entrepreneurs and company-builders and thinkers and connectors and fundraisers.  They will be troublemakers in big institutions who can bend a big operation in a new direction, and free agents who are skilled at connecting ideas with people with money to make things happen.  Mostly, they will be the kind of people willing to do the hard work of creating something new.

This sector doesn’t need people who are looking for jobs – and it won’t for a while.  What it needs are people (like the folks I met at Wharton) who have a 10 year head start on those of us who are already in the industry, people who are willing to take the whole sector to another level and, I hope, to a better destination.

More shapers and visionaries and big thinkers, please.  We are still just at the beginning.

Stand out

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

I recently had the chance to review 30 resumes from job applicants from top business schools.  The level of accomplishment in this group is just astounding.  Best grades, best jobs, speak multiple languages, have done things like volunteering in Nepal before hopping to a top job at Bain or McKinsey or co-founding an Argentine startup or, yes, working at Goldman Sachs.  And all of them have hobbies like “member of the Olympic archery team” or “have climbed three of the Seven Summits.”

What amazed me, beyond how wildly accomplished this group was, was that one out of the 30 had an online presence of any significance.  One.

One person whose body of work was readily available to see and explore.  One person whose mind and thought process and passions were easy to investigate.  One person who had more than a LinkedIn or About.me page.  One person who had a readily-available portfolio of work that gives real insight into who she is.

If this top .0001 percent in terms of accomplishment is missing this opportunity, that means big opportunity for you.  You have a huge opportunity to stand out even among (especially among?) this crowd.

That happens by putting yourself out there and showing the world your best thinking, your best ideas, your best work, in a public place that they can find and explore.  Or, more likely (since you’re just getting started), you’ll start by showing the world the work you can do today, with the knowledge that when you keep on doing it, in a few months or a few years down the road, it will be great work.

What better way could there be to stand out from the crowd?

Better yet, you’ll be amazed at how you learn and grow through the process of pushing your own thinking in this way.

It used to be

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

It used to be that you could go to a meeting, or a job interview, without having really prepared in advance: without looking up the details of who someone is, what they’ve done, and where they’ve worked; without checking out their organization, the role they play, and who they work with; without skimming their LinkedIn profile, reading a few of their blog posts, and watching a video of them speaking; without seeing who they’ve helped along the way, or checking out the interesting, generous things that they’re involved with in their free time.

Now, skipping those steps is not allowed.  Now, it’s a sign that you’re unprepared and care less.  Now it’s a missed opportunity to have a conversation that’s more relevant to both of you.

The other side of this coin, lest we forget, is that just like you’re using The Google to figure out who you’re meeting and what their story is, people are doing the same thing before meeting you.

It used to be that them discovering nothing about you other than the boxes you’ve checked was enough.  It used to be, but it isn’t any more.

Just you

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

A number of years ago I bumped into an old family friend, a senior partner at a law firm, on the 7:30am Delta Shuttle from New York to DC.  For me, catching that flight was always a discombobulated mad morning dash of stuff and stumbling through security (shoes, belt, bag, computer…) and grabbing a few newspapers for the flight.

As we were going down the aisle in the plane I noticed he had nothing with him – no briefcase, no suitcase, nothing.  I asked him about it and he said, “They asked me to come down to DC for the day, so I’m going.  What they asked for is me and that’s what they’re getting.  Nothing else.”

It was said tongue-in-cheek, with a smile, but I liked the point he was making.

At some point you need to strip it all away, the busyness and the stuff, the laptops and the schedules and everything unnecessary, and realize that in the end it’s just you, laid bare.  What you have to offer, the clarity of your insights, what you, unadorned, bring to the table.

Clean, simple, no additional baggage.

Skills for this century

~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

The deadline for applying for Seth Godin’s summer internship is tomorrow, May 31st.  And the last 15 applications will be discarded, so today is effectively the last day to apply.  It’s a two-week internship from July 22nd to August 2nd.  All the details are here.

I thought the skills Seth is looking for were pretty indicative of must-have skills for the next century, no matter what line of business you think you’re in.  Everyone doesn’t need all of them (though why wouldn’t you learn all of them at at least a minimal level, since today you can, easily)?

Still, it’s impossible to argue that anyone is allowed, any more, to have none of them.

Seth_internship skills

Basically, the list boils down to:

  • Coding
  • Design
  • Writing good copy
  • Coming up with ideas
  • Selling stuff
  • Managing projects
  • Hustle

(I, too, give bonus points for Monty Python trivia but I’ll admit that feels a bit arbitrary.)

Not a bad list, though, sadly, it compares terribly to what we’re teaching in our schools (including business schools).

On this last point, if you have kids or you care about education, you really must watch Seth’s “Stop Stealing Dreams” talk at TEDxYouth.   And once the video inspires you, read and share Seth’s full manuscript with the parents and educators in your life.

Are you a fundraiser?

~ Sasha ~ 4 Comments

There’s an old line that parents swap, and it goes something like:

People who aren’t parents think that there’s not a chasm between people who are and are not parents.  People who are parents know that there is one.

It’s not better or worse to be a parent, it’s just a different worldview and state of mind, a line that you cross and can never go back.

I think fundraisers experience something similar.  A good fundraiser is just as smart and savvy and capable and strategic as non-fundraisers – indeed much of what motivated me to start this blog was how frustrated I was to see that the nonprofit world sidelined fundraisers and fundraising and then wondered why it was so hard to scale things that work.

But there is something different about being a (good) fundraiser.  It means that at any day, at any moment, on some level you’re thinking about that revenue line, thinking about where you are in the year, how much time you have left, and what it’s going to take to get there.

This, too, isn’t good or bad, it just is.  It’s something you feel in your bones and in your gut.  And living with that feeling and that stress does take some getting used to.  I think the challenge of living with that discomfort is where lots of the burnout for fundraisers comes from.

My hope is that if we acknowledge it, if we say it out loud, if we share that this is something we are all holding, the weight that we are bearing gets just a bit lighter.

A wasted day

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Think about it: on a day when you swing for the fences, you might swing and miss.

A miss means a complete miss, a whiff, an air-ball, and all the associated jeering (we think) from the peanut gallery.  Wouldn’t it be embarrassing, and inefficient, to be completely wrong, to put a big idea out there that goes nowhere at all, one that’s just plain wrong?  Wouldn’t it, objectively, be a waste of time to work on something all day long and have it amount to nothing?

We have no time to waste!  Let’s tick through our To Do list, take the meetings that are on our calendars,, chip away at the projects that others have asked us to work on.  We know, at least, that on a day like that we will never have accomplished nothing.  This not only feels safer, it’s also what we were taught to do for a major portion of our lives.  It’s where good grades come from and how we got good reviews at our first and second jobs.

On the other hand, hitting “send” or “publish” on an outlandish, important idea; digging in and doing the work that no one asked you to do; spending time with people who will push your thinking and take your work to the next level…none of that is linear at all.  And so we are faced with our anticipation of the possibility being totally wrong, of our idea missing the mark, of being embarrassed, of discovering that, at least at this moment, we’re not that good at coming up with The Next Big Thing, and, staring that anticipation in the face, we decide to keep on playing small and safe for long enough that soon enough that’s the only thing we do.

The question becomes: which really is the wasted day?  The one where you tried for something big and failed, or the one where you didn’t step to the plate, didn’t take the shot, didn’t put yourself on the line?

Never trying anything can’t be a strategy for getting from here to there.  Nor can waiting until you’re “in charge,” because: 1. You shouldn’t be put in charge until you’ve shown that you can make new things happen; and 2. If you’re put in charge without having learned how to make important things happen, how will you suddenly know how to break away from the task orientation that had served you so well for so long?

Have you ever met with your boss or a peer and had them tell you: “you’re doing great work, but I’m giving you a terrible review because you played it too safe last year?”   Have you ever told that to someone else?

What does it take to get us to start playing big?