Founder's Associate

The role

You will work directly with the CEO on whatever the business needs next.

It is a generalist job on purpose. One month you are in the funeral book working out why a number moved. The next you are on Connect, looking at what happens between someone buying a SIM and actually using it. The month after that you are writing down a process that has only ever lived in somebody's head.

Part of the job is keeping the CEO's week working. Diaries, meetings, travel and events. It sits next to the project work, not underneath it, and it is the part that gets you in the room for everything else.

You will get real work and real ownership sooner than is comfortable. Some of it is analysis. Some of it is running a project until it is finished. Some of it is unglamorous and still has to be done properly.

What you'll get to do

You will get a question and you go and answer it. Why did activations drop last month? What would it take to open in another Southern African market? Is this partner worth the work?

You pull the numbers, sit with the people doing the work, build the model, run a small pilot, and come back with a recommendation you are prepared to defend. Then you write up what you learned, including the parts you got wrong, so the next person does not start from scratch.

You will be close to how decisions get made. You will build the ExCo pack, sit in the meeting, and leave with the actions. Often you will be the one person with the time to check something properly.

You will work with nearly every team here. That is how you learn a business, and how you pick up its fragrance.

The shape of the role is temporary on purpose. People who do it well find the part of the business they want to run, and go and run it.

Who we are and what we do

Asuer is a people business, powered by fintech products and solutions, built for individuals, communities and businesses across Southern Africa. We put cover, connection and growth within reach: business systems, insurance and mobile today, with fair credit and payments on the way.

Born from the ongoing digital transformation of Botle Buhle Brands (BBB), an impact business that has created earning opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Southern Africans over 28 years, Asuer has grown into an independent company centred on financial inclusion and accessible technology. Everything we build is guided by our core values: Impact, Innovation and Integrity.

Responsibilities

• Running projects for the CEO, from the first question through to the recommendation and the delivery.
• Researching markets, products and partners, and coming back with something we can act on.
• Building the analysis behind decisions: pricing, performance and business cases.
• Preparing the material for ExCo, Board and investor meetings, and doing the thinking behind it.
• Chasing stalled work across Insure, Connect and Technology, with no authority to make anyone move.
• Running the CEO's diary, and setting up the meetings that go into it.
• Organising events, off-sites and team sessions, from the booking through to the day itself.
• Handling the admin that keeps the CEO's office moving.
• Writing down how things work, especially where the only version lives in somebody's head.
• Picking up the work that falls between roles, and doing it properly.

Our requirements include

Must be able to:

• Turn a loose question into something you can actually answer.
• Work on your own for weeks, and ask for help early rather than late.
• Write for a busy reader. One page, plain language, the answer at the top.
• Learn a new subject fast. Funeral cover one quarter, mobile the next.
• Go and sit with the team doing the work, rather than sending a request and waiting.
• Stay organised when the week changes on you, and keep the small things from slipping.

Knowledge & experience:

• 2 to 5 years of work behind you, or a graduate programme where you did more than rotate through it.
• Comfortable in a spreadsheet, including when the data is messy and incomplete.
• Something you started, ran or fixed that would not have happened without you. That is the story we will ask about.
• Consulting, banking or startup experience helps. None of it is required.

Prerequisites:

• South African work authorisation.
• A relevant tertiary qualification.