Senior Insights Manager

About the Role 

The Senior Insights Manager will support mobile operators to better reach women micro-entrepreneurs and shape and deliver frontier research on the digital and financial inclusion of women micro-entrepreneurs in South Asia, understanding their needs and the barriers they face to using mobile technology and opportunities for addressing them. You will lead quasi-experimental research to inform the design and delivery of initiatives by mobile operators to meet the needs of women micro-entrepreneurs. Bringing together quantitative and qualitative research, you will share actionable insights that can help mobile operators identify commercially sustainable and socially impactful actions to better reach and support female micro-entrepreneurs.  

The Senior Insights Manager will also produce and present research syntheses, and briefs on key topics related to mobile and digital access and how it benefits women’s economic empowerment, plus support convening and knowledge sharing among key stakeholders.  

Key roles and responsibilities include:  

• Lead Connected Women’s research on addressing the mobile gender gap among micro-entrepreneurs in South Asia; understanding the barriers women micro-entrepreneurs face and how their needs can be met. 

• Manage quasi-experimental research, with third parties, to identify scalable approaches to increasing uptake and use of digital financial services by women micro-entrepreneurs in Pakistan. 

• Support engagement with mobile operators in Pakistan involved in the digital financial services research throughout research implementation to ensure strategic and operational alignment is maintained. 

• Support engagement with mobile operators in Pakistan and across South Asia through virtual or in-person workshops to disseminate learnings and make tailored, actionable recommendations 

• Synthesise and disseminate key findings and recommendations from our research on digital and financial inclusion of female-microentrepreneurs in LMICs through high-quality written reports, case studies and blogs, clearly communicated and ensuring the findings are tailored to the target audience. 

• Work effectively with other members of the Connected Women team as well as across the GSMA, including other Mobile for Development programmes such as the Mobile Money Team, to shape insights. 

• Contribute to shaping the digital and financial inclusion agenda for female micro-entrepreneurs, to ensure the programme delivers value to the industry and achieves its targets. 

 About You 

The right candidate will be able to draw on a solid foundation of research, mobile industry knowledge and stakeholder management to produce compelling and persuasive thought leadership content. You will be excited to join a diverse team that shares a passion for the ways mobile technology and frontier tech can empower people, especially women. You must have the right to work either in the UK or in Pakistan. 

Capabilities:  

You will have most or all of the following: 

Essential  

• Experience of conducting research on digital and financial inclusion for women in low- and middle-income countries including understanding the commercial and social opportunities this presents. 

• Excellent strategic and analytical skills, including the ability to isolate and translate problems/research requirements into analytical frameworks, while also identifying commercial opportunities and their potential impact.   

• Demonstrated experience in both qualitative and quantitative research methods including analysis and familiarity with quasi-experimental research and evaluation approaches.  

• Prior experience of managing externally commissioned research projects from end-to-end. 

• Demonstrated ability to plan and manage research projects, driving them through to completion with minimal guidance from your manager. 

• Demonstrated experience in establishing and managing (often remote) productive work relationship with external stakeholders at all levels, including C-level, across a range of geographies. 

• Prior experience of leading the development and writing of high-quality reports in English, including an ability to articulate often complex issues in plain language, without losing the important points and to frame insights in a relevant and compelling way for different audiences. 

• Excellent oral communication skills in English, including an ability to present persuasively and negotiate programmatic actions with key stakeholders. 

• A self-starter, highly motivated to develop initiatives and drive through to completion who is able to work independently with an entrepreneurial, creative, can-do orientation. 

• Ability to travel to Pakistan (if based in London). 

Desirable  

• Strong commercial experience working with or for the private sector including in the mobile industry.   

• Experience in technology solutions to empower women entrepreneurs.  

• Knowledge of key gender issues and the barriers that women in low- and middle-income countries face to participating equally in the digital economy.   

• Ability to communicate verbally in Urdu.