Business Acceleration Lead
We are looking for a full-time Business Acceleration Lead to join Impact Hub Phnom Penh’s dynamic team within our Entrepreneurship Department. In this senior, hands-on role, you will work closely with the Head of Department, Program Managers/Officers, and M&E Specialist to strengthen and innovate our accelerator programs, with a particular focus on supporting later-stage, scaling ventures.
Our ideal candidate has business expertise and a love for mentoring, facilitation, training, and curriculum design. This position is ideal for someone passionate about helping startups succeed, building Cambodia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, and shaping new program areas within a fast-evolving organization.
Summary
Position type: Full-time position ONLY. Full-time = 8 hours per day from Monday to Friday. Some flexibility will be required for evening and weekend work when programs are running (can be claimed as paid leave).
Location: Toul Tompoung, Phnom Penh. Occasional domestic and regional travel may be required (1-2 weeks per trimester)
Application deadline: 25 November 2024
Anticipated start date: Mid-to-late January 2025
Length of contract: 1-year contract that can be renewed based on performance and new opportunities confirmed by Impact Hub Phnom Penh
Your exciting role
Mission
At Impact Hub Phnom Penh, we’re on a mission to support visionary entrepreneurs who are creating meaningful, impactful change in their communities. We believe that true success is about more than just building a business—it’s about building sustainable, people-centered ventures that make a difference. Here’s what success looks like when we work with entrepreneurs:
- Impactful solutions: We support entrepreneurs who are passionate about creating products and solutions that matter, with real, positive impacts on their ecosystems and customers who truly love what they offer (and pay for it!).
- Strong, purpose-driven teams: Success is impossible alone, and we help founders build strong teams around them, particularly in essential leadership roles like finance, sales, and marketing, so they can lead thriving, resilient businesses.
- Access to capital: Every entrepreneur’s path to financial growth is unique. We work to ensure founders have access to the capital they need to grow—whether it’s through bootstrapping, grants, investments, or loans.
- Emotional support and community: We put people first. At Impact Hub Phnom Penh, we understand the pressures that founders face and the value of having a supportive, open community. Here, entrepreneurs can freely discuss their challenges and find the encouragement they need.
If you see some alignment with your own definition of what success looks like in supporting businesses, then we would love to hear from you!
Key Responsibilities
Your role will be highly adaptable, as working at Impact Hub is dynamic and always changing! Approximately two-thirds of your time will be spent working on one accelerator program as its lead curriculum designer and mentor, supporting the ventures in securing strategic partnerships, acquiring customers, and strengthening business operations, and your remaining time will be spent supporting a few smaller high-impact projects in a more targeted capacity.
Curriculum Development, Mentorship, and Program Delivery – 60%
- Mentor/coach ventures participating in our accelerator programs, identifying key areas for growth and development, and establishing support plans to address their specific needs (access to market, investment readiness, operational strengthening, HR process and team culture etc..)
- Design and deliver robust, tailored curricula — primarily for acceleration programs (supporting operational/scaling stage ventures) with some support to incubator programs (early operational ventures) — adapted to the unique needs of the ventures and program priorities.
- Facilitate participatory workshops, trainings, and community-building activities for entrepreneurs, including collaborating with external experts to co-design and co-lead activities.
- Regularly assess program activities to ensure they meet the evolving needs of participating entrepreneurs; actively suggest and implement programmatic improvements.
- Track and analyze venture performance through defined KPIs and milestones.
- Report on project progress to the Head of Department and other colleagues, highlighting success stories, proactively identifying potential risks, and proposing solutions to maintain program momentum.
- Identify and recruit additional mentors and technical consultants fit to the ventures’ needs.
- Act as a connector for ventures to critical resources, such as funding opportunities, strategic partnerships, media exposure, and industry events.
Stakeholder Relationship Building – 15%
- Cultivate strong relationships with key stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, including investors, financial institutions, and industry/market partners who will then be connected with the entrepreneurs.
- Occasionally represent Impact Hub Phnom Penh at industry events/conferences.
- Stay up-to-date on industry and ecosystem trends to advise on Impact Hub Phnom Penh’s strategic positioning and continuously expand our networks.
- Scout promising ventures to join our programs.
Organizational Capacity Development & Program Development – 15%
- Provide feedback and input to the Head of Department and CEO on program effectiveness, ideas for new program models/approaches, and strategic positioning.
- Help develop resources and content to strengthen our offerings and value to entrepreneurs.
- Document and share program learnings, successes, and areas for improvement with the wider team to support organizational knowledge growth.
- Provide input into new program development, including occasionally contributing to writing program proposals or pitch decks.
- Coach and involve Program Managers/Officers to actively help build their confidence and capacities in curriculum development, facilitation, and training.
Ad Hoc – 10%
- When needed, provide support to the broader team to facilitate events/workshops/ trainings.
- When needed, support the team in running research projects or any other ad-hoc consultancy projects.
Requirements
Education:
Bachelor’s degree (Master’s degree preferred) in Economics, Business, International Relations, or a related field.
Languages Required:
Full oral and written fluency in Khmer and English (mentoring, training, and facilitation will be required in both languages).
Experience:
- At least 5 years of national or international experience in a startup, incubator/accelerator, innovations in private businesses or international development sector. Experience in climate, sustainability, and/or agriculture fields is a plus.
- Experience directly supporting entrepreneurs/ventures (including through mentoring and training), particularly with operational, scaling ventures.
- Experience working in rural settings in Cambodia is a plus.
Knowledge & Skills:
- Deep understanding of the challenges and needs of entrepreneurs in Cambodia.
- Expertise in core areas of business strengthening, including business modeling, strategic planning, HR capacity building, financial management, and sales. Ability to conduct diagnostics and identify actions to strengthen business viability.
- Familiarity with investment readiness and the landscape of financing options for startups in Cambodia. Existing contacts with investors and other financial institutions a plus.
- Excellent facilitation and training skills, particularly utilizing community-building, participatory pedagogy, and creative engagement methods.
- Excellent people management skills: ability to work with a diversity of individuals with maturity and tact, and build relationships with stakeholders, including investors, NGOs, private sector leaders, and startups.
- Excellent program management skills, including experience collaborating in cross-functional teams, working across multiple workstreams, and remaining accountable to program timelines and KPIs.
- Excellent analytical and strategic thinking skills, including an ability to quickly identify gaps/needs and suggest concrete solutions.
Essential Qualities & Values:
- Passion for supporting startups to grow and thrive.
- Empathy-driven, coaching approach to supporting entrepreneurs.
- Self-motivated, proactive, and able to work with a high degree of autonomy. A high level of ambition for the project and own work to continuously improve and achieve impact.
- Positive, collaborative, “can-do” spirit that can thrive in Impact Hub Phnom Penh’s youthful, energized, and fast-moving culture.
- Superior professionalism, tact, and dependability.
- Passionate about Impact Hub’s vision to create a more just and sustainable Cambodia by inspiring and enabling Cambodian changemakers, entrepreneurs and innovators who want to make the world a better place.
Why should you work for Impact Hub Phnom Penh?
Our mission and vision
We believe that by building resilient, collaborative, and socially conscious enterprises over the next 5-10 years, we can create a more sustainable, just, and innovative Cambodia by 2030.
At Impact Hub Phnom Penh, we introduce ourselves as a community that nurtures impact makers and strengthens the ecosystem with the vision to see a more sustainable, just, and innovative Cambodia. We inspire, connect, and enable a generation of collaborative impact makers, including youths, entrepreneurs, and innovators, through our program, consultancy, community building, and online learning to support them in making a positive social and environmental impact. We want to build a thriving ecosystem of impact-driven businesses and young leaders across Cambodia.
What it’s like to work with us
We are a team of 20 people based in Phnom Penh. We’re a dynamic, diverse, and energized team. We have a beautiful, creative office in Tuol Tom Poung.
Impact Hub Phnom Penh has 3 big program departments: entrepreneurship, media4impact, and youth & education, supported by our finance department and communications department. Generally speaking, we believe in ‘self-organizing teams’ and giving trust, creative responsibility, and autonomy to our team, which creates the leaders we need to grow fast and build a happy workplace. As a result, we are highly flexible and accommodating and nurture a culture of listening to others and discussing solutions to problems we see together. Some words that might describe our internal culture would be “passionate,” “fun,” “quality-focus,” “collaborative,” “eager,” “caring,” and “supportive.”
Other reasons to work with us
Flexible working hours – you can either work in the early morning (9 am to 6 pm) or start a bit later from 11 am to 8 pm. We acknowledge that different people have different productive times.
Be part of a young, energized team that promotes and values inclusiveness, respect, and kindness.
Play a pivotal role in crafting Impact Hub’s award-winning entrepreneurship programs and build personal relationships with our inspiring entrepreneurs.
Become part of a global network of changemakers, entrepreneurs, and makers worldwide as part of the Impact Hub network with 110+ Impact Hubs around the world.
Work from our beautiful, innovative, and creative workspace in Tuol Tom Poung.
Be part of a team that cares for the planet by promoting plastic-free events, programs, and offices.
That's awesome! What else?
- Competitive salary
- Room for growth in the organization and a flexible role that can adapt to your strengths and interests
- Opportunity to design your dream job in the organization after a successful 1-year contract
- Accident health insurance with an international provider
- Annual professional development budget
- Annual well-being and care budget
- 1 extra day off per month on the 1st day of painful periods for women
- Diverse opportunities to travel locally and internationally to represent IHPP in our network, as part of our programs, and to learn from others in the region
What are you waiting for? Apply now!
Click the button below to access the application form. In the application form, you will be asked a series of questions and will be asked to send your CV.
Not sure if you meet all the criteria? Apply – you never know what can happen! We are open-minded and human-centered. If you believe you can do it, apply and let’s see what happens! 🙂
The deadline to apply is 25 November 2024
We welcome people from all backgrounds, and ethnicities, and cultures, and experiences. Impact Hub is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or family status, disability, gender identity or expression. Research has shown that some applicants from more marginalized or vulnerable groups do not apply if they do not meet 100% of the criteria, while those from better-off, educated backgrounds apply even if they only meet 60% of the criteria.
If you are in doubt but feel this job fits you and aligns with your learning goals, please apply! All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality.
