Commercial Associate-Nigeria at Pula

About Pula

At Pula, we are radically restructuring agricultural insurance, using technology to insure the previously unbanked, uninsured, untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide. 

We work in over 17 countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2021, we have facilitated crop insurance cover to over 5.3 million farmers across Kenya, India, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Zambia, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Malawi. Since raising our Series A our operations have expanded globally including now Asia and Latin America.

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.

What you will be doing

The Commercial Associate 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”. You will be rewarded very well at it 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;

Client Management

• Attending all recurring meetings internally and with the client's support team to enhance cordial relationships and customer satisfaction. Hence, a high and smooth Renewal rate.

• Specifically ensuring that Crop Development Reports, mid-season and end season reports are generated timely and in the formats that the client required and presented to them. This enhances customer satisfaction and ensures a smooth payout process.

• Maintain a proper client data sheet that includes critical client details- like when the budget is drawn and approved, to enhance timeliness in pitching to them, especially on the Collating all complaints from the client during the season and ensuring that all are captured while payout reporting is made.

• Train the client’s and the stakeholders regional and the district team.

• Manage the customer accounts while the CM/CD is away on leave.

• Managing and improving sales tools and processes e.g the CRM.

• Assisting with administrative tasks such as requisitions, workshop preparation. 

Administration Support

• Support the line manager in writing meeting notes on the proper tool, recording the meeting, and filing the notes/recordings in the client folder.

• Liaising with relevant teams internally to ensure that clients and commercial managers have accurate and reliable information.

• Coordinating with the team carrying out farmer registration (whether it is client or PULA) to ensure we get farmers' lists on time, and is correct.

• Cooperate with internal department to update tools like click -up.

Market Research & Pipeline Development

• Provide research support on the new markets and new clients by performing research and analysis to identify business and client opportunities.

Sales

• Pursuing leads, reaching out through calls and correspondence and arranging appointments.

What you need to be successful

• Building and managing relationships is at your core. 
• You live it. You are the best at it. You love it!
• You have a strong interest in a sales career.
• You are open working in a sales target environment.
• You have a passion for working with the public sector and NGO environment .
• Critical Thinking Skills. You must have the ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• You have at least 3 years experience working in an environment requiring people skills, relationship development and management.
• Behavioral 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.
• Transferable skills from a customer relations role.
• You have excellent communication and presentation skills, integrity and impeccable professionalism.
• 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 Google Drive applications such as Google Sheets, Google Docs, as well as MS office applications such as powerpoint, excel etc

What Pula will bring to the table

• Growth potential: With an untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide, on track to doubling the number of farmers insured in 2021 and Pula’s global leadership in Agriculture Insurance, the Commercial Director has a tremendous upside growth potential.
• Market Leader: Not only is the opportunity massive, but Pula is by far the market leader in it’s category with 5.3m farmers insured as at the end of 2021.
• 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 a  $6m series A funding in December 2020 in the right in middle of the pandemic a clear testimony of the opportunity that Pula is going after.
• 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, reporting to the CEO and Co-Founder, 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