Associate Director, Academy Impact

Acumen Academy is hiring an Associate Director of Impact to lead the impact measurement and management (IMM) of Acumen Academy. This role will build and manage the impact tools, processes, and systems; manage the data collection and analysis; and build the evidence base needed for insights and reporting. This hybrid position is located in London with an expectation of working from the office 2-3 days a week. This role will work closely with the global Academy team and Acumen’s Impact team and will report to the Chief of Academy.

About Acumen
Acumen is changing the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies, leaders and ideas. We invest patient capital in businesses whose products and services are enabling the poor to transform their lives. To date, Acumen has positively impacted more than 500 million lives by investing $164M in 167 innovative, early-stage companies in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States. But investment isn’t only about capital–we’ve been investing in innovators for years, connecting with emerging leaders around the world and engaging them in collective dialogue, moral inquiry, and skill building.

About Acumen Academy
Acumen Academy is the world’s school for social change. We’re supporting a new generation of social innovators and leaders with the character and competence to solve problems of poverty and build a world based on dignity. We seek to inspire a new generation by sharing stories of visionary role models and business models with the world. We deliver our Fellowship program in 8 regions around the world, with 200 graduates per year. We offer our program alumni lifelong accompaniment on their journey to scale the impact of their organization. We share their stories, alongside insights from other sector and Acumen experts, in our online courses and resources.

About the role
The Associate Director, Academy Impact is a pivotal new role, designed to lead all impact activities across Acumen Academy in our next phase of growth. This role will focus on refining the impact strategy and Theories of Change across interventions and regions, build and manage the impact tools, processes and systems, manage data analysis, and build the evidence base needed for actionable insights to magnify impact. There is an exciting scope to refine the appropriate impact pathways that are fit for purpose. Practically, this involves establishing the frameworks and leading the data team to drive data collection, monitoring and analysis to optimize and evaluate achievements, and preparing reports for funding partners and key stakeholders.

This role leads on all engagement on impact measurement and management, which includes impact as part of communications, proposals and reporting to funders and key stakeholders, but also thought leadership and sharing insights on developing the sector. The role will also serve to amplify impact measurement and management for Academy learners - ensuring how insights will inform and impact the leaders in our Foundry community and the organizations they lead.

In terms of collaboration and reporting, this role will be a core member of the Academy leadership team, report directly to the Chief of Academy, and will lead the Academy data team. The role is also part of Acumen’s Impact Team and may work with service providers including third-party data collectors, advisors and evaluators. It is an exciting opportunity for an impact professional keen to build, implement, manage and execute on impact workstreams.

Responsibilities

Your curiosity will help us to uncover insights and connections and power decisions that will ensure that our work is both impactful and efficient.

• Impact strategy and frameworks: Collaborate with the Chief of Academy to establish metrics for success across Academy, refining theories of change and identifying impact throughlines across interventions and regions.
• Impact process and systems: Improve data availability and integrity, utilizing the right incentives and technology to gather data from our community.
• Insights creation and thought leadership: Facilitate translation of data to feed into insights creation, reporting and decision making. Develop insights reports that will help shape the evolution of this sector.
• Impact and Monitoring and Evaluation resources for Academy community: Collaborate with Curriculum and Content team to develop and deliver resources to teach social entrepreneurs how to measure the impact of their organizations.
• Management: Lead the Academy Data team to establish a consistent approach to data collection and analytics, ensuring continuity with the Acumen Impact approach.
• Build an accessible database of Academy impact data for senior Acumen stakeholders: Assess the current impact data and methods, and recommend best ways to improve the right data selection, collection and aggregation. Make findings easily accessible, update-able, and visual to facilitate analysis and actionable insights. 

Skills and Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years of experience in Monitoring and Evaluation/Impact measurement and management
• Sector experience in education and leadership building
• Experience is building and managing complex data systems with an orientation towards insights and recommendations
• Ability to lead and manage a team
• Ability to advance strategic direction across a multi-regional organization, across time zones and cultures
• Self-reflective and aligned with Acumen values
• Authorized to work in the UK

Deadline
Candidates are encouraged to apply as early as possible as applications will be screened and interviews scheduled on a rolling basis.

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