Join us as a consultant, trainer, associate, manager, or director to help us grow our impact.
There are two sides to employment: the nature of your work and the nature of your job. If we’re aligned on both then we’d really like to talk to you.
THE WORK:
Agora Global is social enterprise which has grown rapidly to become a leading voice in taking a systems approach to development. We provide consulting, training, and research services to development funders, implementers, and private companies with the universal aim to make development impact more inclusive, more sustainable, and impact on more people.
We design programmes, provide long term implementation support, help programmes to design and operate monitoring systems, and conduct complex evaluations. We run training programmes aimed at giving those involved in different roles within development the skills to do their jobs better. We’re also fiercely independent. We work with a wide variety of clients and partners meaning we’re able to continue to conduct research and advocacy work with objectivity in pursuit of better development.
Sectorally and thematically, we work across a broad spectrum focusing particularly on areas at the innovation frontier where programmes have the most to gain from a systemic approach. We work in agriculture and finance, but we’ve also been leading much of the innovation in urban development, education, health, informal sectors and labour markets, as well as the humanitarian-development nexus with substantial work in taking a market systems approach to engagement in refugee contexts.
We want you to take a role in all parts of the business but you may want to specialise your specific areas of interest.
THE PERSON:
There’s no archetype that makes you good at this type of work. The only mandatory skill is excellent written English. While most job adverts might say that, we really mean it. Being able to communicate complex concepts to a range of different audiences requires excellent written and presentation skills. Beyond that, most clients require a minimum of a Master’s degree, which we have to pass on as a requirement. That’s all the measureable criteria, but we really want you to study these qualitative criteria and we only want to hear from you if you genuinely feel they describe you.
Critical thinker: Do you naturally question the things you hear, the things you read, and the received wisdom that shapes people’s decisions? Many education systems don’t encourage this but it’s essential that you’re intellectually curious and challenge yourself and others with an evidence-based approach.
Likeable: there’s no point being right if you can’t get people to agree with you. You need to be able to bring people with you, whether they’re policymakers, business people, colleagues on development programmes or the disadvantaged people who our work hopes to benefit.
Multitasker: The nature of the work, with no project being a full time engagement, means that we might be working on several projects at once. You need to be on top of all of them and able to switch between them at short notice.
An appetite for travel: While we use technology to the best of our ability, infrastructure in some of our workplaces and the nature of learning mean that, often, in person engagement is more effective. If you’re not the type of person who enjoys travelling to new places then this probably isn’t the job for you.
Experience: There really is nothing that’s mandatory here. There is an aspect of the business that’s based on a CV, so experience that looks good to a client is useful. But if you’re not the right fit in terms of the rest of the requirements, our conversation won’t get that far. Conversely, if you don’t have any experience in market systems development or even development in general, that won’t preclude us taking the discussion further. We should be clear that this isn’t a graduate position and a minimum of five years of experience in a professional field is desirable, even if that field isn’t international development.
THE JOB:
We aim to be a company fit for the 21st Century. A job is perhaps not the right term as what we’re seeking are bespoke partnerships with talented people to meet their personal and professional needs as well as those of Agora. That is to say we’re interested in building Agora and want you to want to be part of it. If we share principals and objectives and you have the right skills, then we’re open as to how we make it work on a case by case basis. This might include:
As an employee-owned business, we offer equity partnerships to the right people.
Fully remote working on a full-time basis. We have people across four continents and it can be a real advantage to keep travel time down.
Associate arrangements where we offer you work and you decide on a case by case basis if you want to do it
Exclusive part-time positions where you commit a given number of days per year and the rest of the time is your own.
Among others – if there’s a way you have in mind that you want an arrangement to work, we’re open to the conversation.
If you’re interested in this then we’re interested in you and we’d be keen to chat about how we might work together.
Next Steps
If this is of interest then please get in touch. Send a note stating the nature of your interest along with a CV to admin@agoraglobal.org.