Business Development Manager

Job description

# **About the Company** Nuru Solutions is a B2B agricultural data intelligence platform operating across Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Somalia. We combine satellite imagery, weather data, ground-truth and machine learning to deliver farm-level intelligence to insurers, lenders, and agribusinesses serving smallholder farmers. Our platform powers six core analytical pillars: crop health monitoring, yield prediction, risk profiling, farm boundary detection, credit risk assessment, and market price forecasting. We achieve 80–98% accuracy through a hybrid approach that fuses multi-source satellite data, ML models, and validated ground-truth data, a combination that outperforms single-source competitors. ## **About the Role** Nuru is at an inflection point. We have validated product-market fit, a growing institutional pipeline, and proven model accuracy across multiple countries. Commercial activity to date has been founder-led. That is the constraint we are now removing. This is Nuru’s **first dedicated commercial hire**. The mandate is to take a validated product with demonstrated results and build a repeatable revenue engine around it — converting the existing institutional pipeline, systematically mapping the addressable market of lenders and insurers across our four countries, and establishing the qualification discipline, CRM foundation, and sales process the next stage of growth will be built on. This person will be responsible for transforming Nuru’s commercial function from a founder-led, relationship-driven effort into a structured, forecastable, and scalable sales operation. You will not be handed a playbook. You will write it. ## **What You Will Do** 1. **Pipeline Generation & Market Mapping** - Systematically map the addressable market of financial institutions across Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Somalia — identifying who lends to or insures smallholders, at what volume, with what risk problem, and who inside the institution owns that problem. - Build and maintain a qualified pipeline through structured outbound: targeted outreach, referral generation, and consistent follow-through against a defined activity model. - Prioritise ruthlessly — identifying which segments, institution types and geographies produce the shortest path to revenue, and concentrating effort accordingly. 2. **Sales Execution & Deal Ownership** - Own the full sales cycle from origination through discovery, demonstration, technical validation, pilot design, commercial negotiation and close. - Deliver credible product demonstrations to sophisticated institutional buyers — credit, risk, underwriting and actuarial leads — translating model performance into commercial consequence: loss ratio, default rate, portfolio expansion, cost to serve. - Navigate complex, multi-stakeholder decision-making processes. Our sales cycles routinely involve credit, risk, operations, technology, procurement, and often a board or regulator. Building a coalition inside each account is the job, not an obstacle to it. - Structure and negotiate pilots and commercial agreements that convert into recurring revenue rather than stranding as unpaid proofs of concept. 3. **Commercial Infrastructure & Reporting** - Own and operate Nuru’s CRM as a working system: accurate pipeline hygiene, stage discipline, and reliable forecasting. - Apply a consistent qualification framework across all opportunities so that pipeline reported to the CEO and board reflects reality. - Produce clear commercial reporting — pipeline coverage, conversion rates, cycle length, win/loss analysis — and use it to improve the process. - Build the assets the function will run on: outreach sequences, discovery frameworks, objection handling, pricing guidance, case materials. 4. **Market Intelligence & Stakeholder Communication** - Act as the company’s ear in the market, feeding competitive intelligence, pricing signals and unmet needs back into product and pricing decisions. - Represent Nuru’s methodology and results accurately to institutional partners. Accuracy and performance claims must align with Nuru’s model validation standards — independently validated results only. - Represent Nuru at industry events, partner forums and investor-facing engagements alongside the CEO. ## **What You Have** **Must-Haves (Required)** - **5+ years of B2B business development or enterprise sales experience**, with a demonstrated track record of carrying and hitting a number. - **Experience selling to financial services clients** — banks, MFIs, insurers, or fintechs. This is the single most important qualifier. You should already understand how these institutions buy, how long it takes, and who genuinely signs. - **Proven experience demonstrating a product to clients** and leading technical or solution-led sales conversations with credibility. - **Demonstrated experience in market mapping and territory construction** — building a target universe from first principles rather than working an inherited list. - **Track record managing complex sales cycles and complex decision-making processes**: long timelines, multiple stakeholders, procurement, phased commitments. - **Fluent, disciplined use of a CRM** as an operating tool, not an administrative afterthought. - **Entrepreneurial, mature, and proactive.** You will be the first commercial hire in a lean business. There is no support function to fall back on, no inherited process, and no one checking your calendar. You must set your own priorities, operate without supervision, and be honest about what is and isn’t working. - **Strong upward management.** You will report directly to the CEO. That means bringing solutions alongside problems, managing expectations proactively, and giving unvarnished visibility into pipeline reality — particularly when it is uncomfortable. - Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to hold a technical conversation and a commercial one in the same meeting. **Strongly Preferred** - **Working knowledge of the MEDDIC qualification framework** (or equivalent — MEDDPICC, Command of the Message) and a habit of applying it rigorously. - **Exposure to agriculture, agri-data, geospatial or climate risk.** Genuinely advantageous, not required — we can teach the sector; we cannot teach commercial instinct. - **Experience in early-stage or scale-up environments** where you built the systems rather than inherited them. - **Familiarity with credit risk, insurance, or financial product design** in agricultural or development contexts. - Existing network across East, Southern, or West African financial services. - Willingness to travel across our four markets. ## **Why This Role is Unique** 1. **You are the first.** First commercial hire into a fast-growing business with a validated product. You will define how Nuru sells — the process, the messaging, the qualification standard, the CRM architecture. Few commercial people get the chance to build the function rather than inherit it. 2. **Direct access to the founder.** You will work side by side with the CEO daily. No layers, no filtering, no waiting for decisions. 3. **A clear growth pathway.** This role is the foundation of Nuru’s commercial function. The intention is that the person who builds it well grows with it, into leadership of the team that follows. 4. **Regional scope over time.** We operate in four countries today. Commercial ownership of that regional footprint is a natural progression from this seat. 5. **A genuinely engaged advisory board.** Nuru has assembled senior operators, investors and sector specialists at board level, and they are accessible. This is not a decorative board — it is a resource, and you will have direct exposure to and mentorship from people whose experience meaningfully complements the CEO’s. 6. **External validation.** Recognised as one of the 30 most promising African startups, with 25,000 farmers served through our platform to date.