Portfolio Jobs
Want to work with a fintech focused on creating a fair finance system? Check out these job openings across the globe.
Commercial Associate - Pakistan
Pula Advisors
This job is no longer accepting applications
See open jobs at Pula Advisors.See open jobs similar to "Commercial Associate - Pakistan" Flourish Ventures.Pakistan
Posted 6+ months ago
About Pula
We are an insuretech firm that provides agriculture insurance design and execution services, specialising in index based insurance and are backed by top tier VC investors who have invested more than $25 million in the business. Since 2015 we have provided climate insurance to 15.4 million smallholder farmers, 41% of which were women across 19 markets in Africa and Asia who pay an average of $6.8 per season to insure their crops. So far we've unlocked over $2.22 billion of capital from local and international insurance markets for climate risks since we started in 2015 and paid out $40.8 million to our client farmers.
Pula is a fast-paced space, constantly adapting to new opportunities and challenges and we are made up of a high-performance, multi-cultural team. We expect our team to value performance, results and professionalism.
At Pula, our values are:
- Obsessed with results: We are responsible for our future and therefore we get things done!
- Connect the Dots: We continuously identify different customer needs & business problems and build solutions that deliver value.
- Have a Can do Attitude! We dare to do things differently to make things work.
- We have each others’ back: We look out for each other & we share high quality, timely feedback that makes us better.
According to the UN’s InterGovernmental Panel for Climate Change more than 3.3 billion people globally live in hotspots with high vulnerability to climate change and are now already feeling the impact of climate change through increased temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall.
Insurance is a tool for vulnerable households in these affected regions to adapt to the effects that climate change is already having today on these households. It is a tool that enables for compensation payment for losses and damages that these households had no part in causing. Insurance compensation enables these households to make adjustments to their day to day livelihoods and practices and therefore allows for an equitable and just transition.
At Pula, we are building the systems that enable farmers worldwide to access insurance, using technology to insure this previously uninsured worldwide. We work in over 17 countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2021, have facilitated crop insurance cover to over 6 million farmers, 30% of which are women, across Kenya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Zambia, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. We are a for profit, and have raised over $10 million from leading venture and institutional investors as well as developed philanthropic relationships with private foundations and bilateral donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and German Insure Resilience Solutions Fund that have accelerated investments in our target markets.
Pula is proudly fast paced, constantly learning from the challenges we face and overcome. We are proudly culturally diverse but united in our ambition of continuous high-performance. By challenging ourselves we believe that we can overcome the hard problems we love solving.
At Pula, our culture is defined by our:
1.Obsessed with results: We are responsible for our future and therefore we get things done!
2. Ability to connect the Dots: We continuously identify different customer needs & business problems and build solutions that deliver value.
3. Our Can do Attitude! We dare to do things differently to make things work.
4. Ability to have each others’ back: We look out for each other & we share high quality, timely feedback that makes us better.
What you will be doing
The Commercial Manager at Pula is far from the typical sales role. You must be passionate about having meaning in your work. Willing to go the extra mile to evangelize the importance of agriculture insurance in transforming the lives of millions of smallholder farmers across multiple stakeholders from the political elites, to the Government systems, to development agencies all the way down to the farmer. For you to be successful at the role, one must consider it their mission - “how you will be remembered”. Whilst at it, you will be rewarded very well as we believe in “doing good and doing well”. When impacting hundreds of millions of farmers, our mantra is that those successful in the mission must be dollar millionaires in the end. At Pula, good deeds are rewarded.
In this role you'll;
Expanding your networks, influence and Pula’s positioning in the region
- Constantly building deeply entrenched relationships that will enable one to understand client needs, gather market intelligence and build a credible pipeline of opportunities. To succeed in the role, one must incredible enjoy building new relationships and leveraging on relationships to achieve your goals.
- Effectively communicate value propositions through presentations and proposals
- Act as the Pula spokesperson in the region.
- Using knowledge of the market and competitors in the regions, identify and develop the company’s unique selling propositions and differentiators.
Business Development
- Defining Commercial objective key results in your region and ownership of the results.
- Research, prepare and execute a sales plan focused on delivering new and recurring revenues through partnerships with agro-input companies and the public sector.
- Develop pipeline and continuously mature & qualify opportunities in order to increase Pula’’s market share and to enable achievement of sales target.
- Generating and qualifying new leads and using different approaches to penetrate prospective clients in your region. You are expected to qualify opportunities, know which deals to work on, and which ones to pass on.
- Progress prospects through a defined sales process to eventual contracting and implementation.
Customer Relationship Management
- Manage and nurture existing client relationships across a wide range of stakeholders including commodity associations, farmers’ aggregators, insurers, government and private companies.
- Manage the handover of new customers to the operations team for the implementation of the solution.
What you need to be successful
- You have experience in strong demonstrable sales to development agencies, governments and / or financial institutions.
- You have demonstrable success working against a sales quota target.
- You have experience working with Development Agencies and/or Government officials at all levels and navigating government structures.
- Critical Thinking Skills. You must have the ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions
- Behavioural Skills. You must be self-directed, work well alone or in a team structure, highly results-oriented, and willing to learn and expand his/her technical and product knowledge base through formal education, professional training, and self-study.
- You have knowledge and understanding of dealing with C-suite executives with excellent communication and presentation skills, integrity and impeccable professionalism.
- Sales and or consulting experience in the area of agriculture: seed / fertilizer / agrochemical industry or related is a significant advantage.
- Experience and knowledge in the insurance industry will place you at an advantage.
- You have the ability to use data and KPIs to make management decisions.
- You are fully comfortable with sales CRM platforms, Google Drive applications such as Google Sheets, Google Docs etc.
How your role will be broken down
Relationships : 25%
Can build relationships with stakeholders rapidly and can expand into new networks quickly. Having deep rooted existing networks and relationships is a plus. Passionate about building and maintaining relationships.
Resilient: 20%
Can navigate deal complexity and will not give up until the deal is signed. Tenacious. A self starter. Recovers quickly from tough situations. Anticipates and plans for complexity.
Intensity: 15%
Hungry to close deals, has a point to prove and looks to prove that point at Pula.
Builds their profile and therefore reputation around Pula and the Pula products. They do not want to fail therefore will do what it takes for Pula to succeed.
Coachable: 10%
Adaptable: Is eager to learn and grow in their skills and ability. Is resourceful to close any skills and knowledge gap. Openly receives and shares feedback.
A consummate learner.
Gravitas: 10%
Charming. Has a confident, comfortable presence. Can sit across from a PS, Minister and hold his own and pitch without assistance.
Street Smart: 10%
Can understand and map the stakeholders, identify and test champions, structure the deal, problem solve and find another way when the deal gets stuck.
Communication :10%
Can confidently convert information internally and externally adjusting quickly between written and verbal communication as situations call for it. Follows through on action points from conversations and can succinctly summarize the progress required to progress a sale.
What Pula will bring to the table
- Growth potential: At Pula, we are building the systems that enable farmers worldwide to access insurance, using technology to insure this previously uninsured worldwide. We work in over 19 countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2023, have facilitated crop insurance cover to over 5 million farmers, 40% of which are women. We are a for profit, and have raised over $25 million from leading venture and institutional investors as well as developed philanthropic relationships with private foundations and bilateral donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and German Insure Resilience Solutions Fund that have accelerated investments in our target markets.
- Market Leader: Not only is the opportunity massive, but Pula is by far the market leader in it’s category with 11m farmers insured as of 2023.
- Solid: Pula has been funded by leading venture capital investors (Omidyar Network, ACCION, MercyCorps) and global philanthropic institutions (MasterCard Foundation, CGAP/World Bank as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Pula closed an oversubscribed $20m series B funding despite the economic downturn.
- Respected: Winner of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2019, Winner of The InsureTech of the Award, Africa. Featured on TED talks, The New York Times, The Economist.
- Impact and creation: This is a high-impact role, that offers a unique opportunity to bring the company to the next level, whilst developing new strategies, approaches and ideas.
- Leadership: The founders & CEO foster a culture of transparency, respect, high performance, pragmatism, execution and personal development.
- Purpose: It is rare to find a professional opportunity that offers accelerated professional development and a life purpose. Pula is going through a second phase of accelerated growth that will naturally provide professional development, whilst contributing to the financial stability of small farmers in the emerging markets.
- Remuneration: Competitive base salary accordingly with seniority and experience, commission on closed sales and an employee share option plan that offers an attractive equity upside.
To learn more about Pula you can visit
TED Talk: Crop Insurance, an Idea Worth Seeding
New York Times: He Grew up on a Farm. Now, He Helps Protect Them
The Economist: The Poor, Who Most Need Insurance, Are Least Likely to Have It
How to apply
Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English.
Our process:
Stage 1 The Culture Interview: Your complete applications will be reviewed and those shortlisted will be invited for a culture interview to understand if you have Pula DNA
Stage 2 The Technical Interview: Those that pass the culture interview will be invited to complete an assignment that will give you a good sense of what working at Pula is like. This way you will get to know if you like the job, and we get to know you. Those with completed assignments will be invited for a technical interview with the hiring manager.
Stage 3 The Panel Interview: Those that pass the technical interview will be interviewed by a panel of future colleagues who you will be working with at Pula so you can get to know your new colleagues and they can get to know you.
Stage 4 The Reference Check: as described :-)
Stage 5 Offer: If you have gotten this far, you may pat yourself on the back- as you’ll receive an offer!
Pula’s mission is to provide farmer resilience. To achieve this, we put our small holder farmers that use our services and the employees that provide them at the heart of everything we do. For that purpose, Pula was created to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
This job is no longer accepting applications
See open jobs at Pula Advisors.See open jobs similar to "Commercial Associate - Pakistan" Flourish Ventures.