Acumen Fund's India Office is currently seeking highly qualified applicants for the positions of Portfolio Associate and Legal Associate.

Location: Hyderabad, India

Organization: Acumen Fund is a global non-profit venture capital fund serving the four billion people living on less than $4 a day. Its objective is to create a blueprint for building financially sustainable and scalable organizations that deliver affordable, critical goods and services that elevate the lives of the poor. Acumen Fund invests debt and equity in enterprises delivering critical goods and services to the poor in South Asia and East Africa.

Position descriptions:

India Legal Associate: The legal associate at Acumen Fund’s country office in India will provide a wide range of support to the investment, fundraising, operations and finance teams. Reporting to the country business manager, but working closely with the NY-based General Counsel and Legal Counsel and the entire portfolio team, the legal associate will function as a corporate and commercial generalist. He/she will work closely with the New York legal team on a project to develop term sheets and standard legal templates for all Acumen investments as well as training in respect of same. He/she will coordinate outside legal involvement in the transactions and the activities of Acumen Fund’s office in India, in consultation with the General Counsel. The Legal Counsel will advise on general organizational and commercial matters including intellectual property, contract, immigration, employment and governance matters.

India Portfolio Associate: Acumen Fund has four portfolios: health, water, housing and energy.

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Mark Pickens is a Microfinance Analyst with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a global resource center for microfinance housed at the World Bank. We have quoted CGAP on NextBillion in several posts (see them here, here and here). They are arguably the most authoritative source of information about branchless banking services and are currently in the forefront of research efforts to understand and develop this market.

Mark has co-authored a global review of regulation for mobile and other forms of branchless banking, forming an evidence base from more than 500 interviews with central bankers and executives in the mobile, banking and technology industries. His work has been quoted in The Economist, The Banker and CNN.com. Prior to joining CGAP, Mark consulted with the United Nations, US government, commercial banks and specialized microfinance lenders.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark about branchless banking’s recent developments and the most important issues as this market evolves in complexity and size. Mark explains why mobile phone banking is currently one of the hottest sub-topics in the financial services in emerging economies sector.

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Position: Analyst, IGNIA

Location: Monterrey, Mexico

Organization: IGNIA is a $75 million venture capital fund and enterprise development organization  focused on fighting poverty by investing in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) in Latin America.

Description:  The Analyst will work with IGNIA's staff to help raise, research, invest and manage a $75 million base of the pyramid fund.  He or she will have previous experience in the venture capital sector.  Spanish proficiency, though not fluency, is required.

For more information, see the IGNIA web site or contact Alonso Bustamante Guerra.