Director, Digital Products, Global Advisory Solutions

About Accion

Accion is a global nonprofit committed to creating a financially inclusive world, with a trailblazing legacy in microfinance and fintech impact investing. We catalyze financial service providers to deliver high-quality, affordable solutions at scale for the 1.8 billion people who are left out of — or poorly served by — the financial sector. For more than 60 years, Accion has helped tens of millions of people through our work with more than 200 partners in 63 countries. More at accion.org

About Global Advisory Solutions:

Accion’s Global Advisory Solutions team provides experienced operational and management support to help build sustainable and scalable companies focused on serving the financial needs of underserved individuals and small businesses.  We strengthen our partners and maximize their impact by leveraging innovations in technology and financial services to lower costs and increase quality at scale.

Global Advisory Solutions is a team of advisors with hands on experience and deep technical and managerial expertise in building and supporting a range of financial service providers (FSPs).  We work with organizations in emerging markets across Latin America, Africa and Asia to help them plan, implement, scale and enhance technologies and business models that can reduce bottlenecks to and catalyze the growth of financial services.  In addition to our advisory work with FSPs, we contribute to industry development through case study work and research, knowledge sharing, as well as training and capacity building activities.

Position Summary

Accion’s Global Advisory Solutions (GLAS) team has an opening for a Director, Digital Product Solutions – LATAM. The person in this role will be responsible for spearheading the creation of innovative, customer-centric, and scalable financial solutions in emerging markets. Working as part of a global, cross-functional team, s/he will provide technical expertise in digital product development from discovery through implementation to support the customer growth strategies of our financial service provider (FSP) partners.

The Director, Digital Product Solutions has a deep understanding of product design methods and tools, data/business analytics, digital distribution channels, behavioral economics, and UI/UX.  S/he will work on an array of financial products and services, including digitally enabled supply chain finance, innovative credit and savings solutions, and disruptive payment channels and is passionate about re-imagining the delivery of financial products to underserved customers in today’s digital society.

The person in this role will be based in Bogota, Colombia.

Position Responsibilities

Project Management Responsibilities (60%)

• Effectively define and manage projects: scope, budgets, and timelines, communicate project progress, and assess outputs ensuring the highest standards of quality for GLAS clients. Ensure that projects translate to measurable outputs aligned with project and business goals.

Advise FSP clients on digital product strategy and design of innovative digital products (20%)

• Drive digital product strategy, portfolio, and roadmap
• In close collaboration with the client and GLAS project team, develop a comprehensive digital product strategy that considers market opportunities, customer behaviors, and business needs, and supports engagement and growth objectives.
• Review product portfolio to ensure strategic alignment, clear value proposition, channel optimization and market fit. Lead customer understanding, segmentation, and prioritization to support product-fit and drive outreach and innovation.
• Build a multi-year product roadmap that includes infrastructure, resourcing, and partnership requirements.

Lead the design and development of innovative digital financial products (10%)

• Conduct internal, market and competitor analysis to assess business need and market opportunity and define data-driven solution hypotheses.
• Support customer understanding through internal and external data analysis and human centered field research. Lead discovery and design workshops to surface product ideas and build use case scenarios, customer journey maps, and storyboards.
• Develop integrated product concept – from UX/UI through to reporting and compliance – and lead definition of product features and associated business requirements. Leverage best practices in behavioral science to incorporate key design interventions that enhance user experience and drive usage. Develop, assess, and scale prototypes using agile product design methodologies.
• Build product business cases and models to determine the feasibility of product ideas, including key performance indicators and other objective metrics.
• Work across the organization to assess the impact of the product design and its functionality on existing platforms, infrastructure, resourcing, and processes. Collaborate with GLAS subject matter experts to deliver best-in-class recommendations and support to the partner team.
• Develop the go-to-market strategy for the product, including channels optimization and data feedback loops.
• Influence stakeholders through ongoing communication and advocacy to support change management and build cross-functional buy-in and commitment to a shared product vision.

Contribute to GLAS strategy, business development, and thought leadership (10%)

• Support the development and presentation of digital product strategy project proposals to clients and/or donors.
• Actively participate in conferences, discussion forums, and other knowledge sharing and networking spaces to promote Accion and further our position as an industry thought leader.
• Identify opportunities to develop and showcase GLAS learnings, insights and innovations resulting from our digital product strategy research and advisory projects.
• Stay abreast of industry trends, best practices, and innovations in digital product development, providing input and guidance on implications for GLAS service offering and market positioning.

Position Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in relevant area, required; master’s degree, preferred.
• 15 years of progressive professional experience in financial services and/or product development in emerging/low-income markets. 3 years of relevant technical expertise developing digital products.
• Demonstrated success working on B2C products.
• Experience in a leadership role, in one or more of the following: mobile money, digital payments, digital lending, human centered design for financial services, mobile banking, POS/card payments, agent banking, payment gateway, fintech for financial inclusion.
• Experience leading digital product development projects in financial services in emerging markets; including conceptualization, UI and UX design, piloting, and scaling, and change management.
• Track record of developing innovative and sustainable financial products that provide a world class customer-experience.
• Well-versed in best practices in digital product development, including agile methodologies, design thinking, business model design, behavioral economics, and customer discovery
• Innovative mind-set and fresh perspective to the design and development of new and existing business models to support clients in achieving break-through results.
• Curious mindset and demonstrated initiative to learn the developments in fintech and financial inclusion domain; enjoys co-creation and has an entrepreneurial spirit.
• Excellent people skills, experience with multi-cultural environments is preferred.
• Team player who enjoys working in a semi/un-structured environment.
• Spanish and English fluency is required.

Travel Requirement

Ability to travel nationally and internationally (30%).