Job Description

Based in Kenya, BURN designs, produces and distributes East Africa’s best-selling, most durable and economical charcoal and wood cookstoves that also dramatically reduce harmful smoke emissions which can cause significant health problems, even death. See our promo video here

Not only does BURN sell the world’s most fuel-efficient charcoal and wood household stoves, but we are also the only cookstove company which manufactures all its products in sub-Saharan Africa’s only state-of-the-art clean cookstove manufacturing facility.

Since 2013, BURN has sold 650,000+ Jikokoa ™ stoves in East Africa. These stoves have helped 3,000,000 beneficiaries save $215 million in fuel expenditures and 2.6 million tons of wood while reducing indoor air pollution by 65%. BURN currently sells ~25,000 stoves per month and are on track to double sales over the next 12 months by expanding its successful model across Africa. BURN has 300 employees and expects strong growth in the number of employees in the coming years.

BURN is now poised to bring its revolutionary biomass cookstoves – as well as a new range of electric, hybrid, and liquid fuel stoves – to Sub-Saharan Africa & beyond. Over the next 3 years BURN will enter 6 new countries and launch 5 new products.

BURN is looking for a Director of Research whose overall responsibility will be to lead BURN’s long term research department. The DOR will lead a team that will pursue, write and administrate grants (mostly responding to RFPs/solicitations). BURN normally seeks grants to support 3 key areas supports

1. R&D,
2. Pilots/ field studies
3. expansion into new markets.

The DoR, in 2020, will build and supervise a 4-person team that will include Grant Writer, Grant Administrator and 2 Project Managers. This team will liaise with Burn’s existing Design & Engineering, Market Intelligence, and Expansion teams to fulfill items 1 – 3 listed above.

BURN currently raises over $1 million in grant funding and we expect the DOR to grow this to ~$2 million in 2020.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Responsible for resourcing (grant writing and grant administration), project planning, account management, business development, team development
• Ensure that all projects are sufficiently and appropriately resourced and that our recommended project management and analysis approaches arebeing adhered to
• To monitor on a day to day basis, resources for live projects, supplementing/modifying teams as required, and generally acting in the role of troubleshooter to ensure smooth progress of all projects.
• To take an overview of the management of all live projects, ensuring that relevant meetings take place – initiation, mid-project update, product handling, field, data processing and data analysis briefings, debrief planning and postmortems. This will involve direct liaison with each department and key personnel across the relevant departments.
• To scrutinize proposed timings for projects and discuss them with the key departments to ensure that clients needs are met.
• To keep abreast of outstanding proposals to foresee and plan workload levels

Desired experience:

• research management
• grant writing
• grant administration
• project management
• the successful candidate will, in the long run, manage these teams but must have practical experience in each category

Compensation is commensurate with experience. Start date is flexible and within Q4 2019.

To be considered, please send a CV and cover letter to [email protected].

How to Apply

Job Categories: Social Entrepreneurship. Job Types: Full-Time.

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