Portfolio Management Consultant

About FINCA International

FINCA International is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to ending poverty through sustainable and scalable solutions that expand economic opportunity. Operating across multiple regions worldwide, FINCA works to empower underserved communities through financial inclusion, social enterprise, and impact-driven development programs.

Over the next five years, FINCA aims to impact 40 million lives and secure $400 million in donor and investor capital to support this mission. Achieving this vision will require a more scalable, data-driven, and digitally sophisticated fundraising model capable of deepening donor engagement while directly connecting supporters to measurable client impact.

Summary

The Poverty Eradication Lab (PEL) is FINCA International's innovation function, moving new products and business models from Deep Discovery through Human-Centered Design, Build & Pilot, and Validate & Scale. The Lab operates across two tracks: business transformation pilots with Finca network and exploratory pilots that test new innovative products, partners, and markets still finding product-market fit.

The Portfolio Management Consultant is the single accountable owner of an assigned set of pilots end to end.. The Portfolio Management Consultant owns the customer problem, the pilot's business case, and any subsidiary or partner relationship for their portfolio, moving pilots through intake, design, execution, and scale decision without passing accountability to another team. The role has a strong focus on platform ready products, but its scope also extends to exploration pilots as assigned by the Global Product Lead.

PEL exists to advance FINCA International's mission of eradicating poverty by testing and scaling products and business models that measurably improve the livelihoods of low-income households and micro-entrepreneurs. Pilots are judged not only on commercial viability but on evidence of customer-level impact: improved customer experience, increased income, greater resilience, and expanded access.

Scope of Work

Own Pilot Outcomes End to End

• Serve as the single accountable owner for each assigned pilot, whether a financial product or an exploratory pilot, across its full lifecycle from intake through scale recommendation.
• Define the customer and operational problem the pilot is solving, and translate it into a pilot hypothesis, success metrics, and execution plan.
• Maintain real-time visibility over pilot progress, risks, dependencies, and funding linkages, and escalate execution bottlenecks proactively.
• Confirm readiness before a pilot advances stages, and prepare decision-ready materials, including concept notes, pilot plans, and scale recommendations, for leadership review.
• Co-create a learning agenda with HCD & Research team for each exploratory pilot and ensure all learnings are documented at pilot completion.

Product & Business Case Ownership

• Own the product vision and business case for the pilot, defining what customer and commercial problems it is meant to solve and what evidence would justify moving it toward scale.
• Develop and track product success criteria, monitor customer, operational, and commercial performance, and translate learnings into recommendations for refinement, scale, or discontinuation.
• For platform pilots, work with platform technical product teams to convert validated business requirements into scalable delivery priorities, and ensure product decisions align with FINCA's product standards and risk requirements. Design customer journeys, product or feature PRDs & conduct/oversee platform UATs.
• For exploratory pilots, define product hypotheses and test them against real customer and market evidence before recommending further investment.
• Develop Product prototypes/ SOPs, related tools, training materials and performance trackers. Maintain an issue log from product testing to pilot completion.

Partner & Stakeholder Relationship Management

• Own the external partner or funder relationship for assigned pilots as the day-to-day point of contact, including where PEL's role is to manage the pilot and generate evidence rather than lead hands-on innovation.
• Act as the primary point of contact for pilot-related inquiries from subsidiary leadership, internal stakeholders, and external partners.
• Partner with subsidiary commercial, credit, risk, and operations teams to ensure pilots are ringfenced, well-scoped, and non-disruptive to core business.
• Platform pilots may involve close collaboration with subsidiary products teams, including managing daily or weekly standups.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Pull in HCD and research support as needed to validate pilot assumptions, test customer desirability, and assess impact, recognizing HCD as a shared function rather than a dedicated resource per pilot.
• Work with the Program team on portfolio synthesis, governance, and reporting, and with fundraising or communications functions when a pilot needs evidence to support their work.
• Collaborate with vendors and technology teams as needed to define business requirements for product or platform changes.

Reporting

• Regularly report pilot findings, performance, and recommendations to the Global Product Lead and Chief Product & Customer Officer.
• Maintain structured pilot documentation and decision logs to support portfolio-level synthesis and reporting.
• Provide periodic updates & inputs to reports for donor funded pilots.

Key Deliverables

For each assigned pilot, the Portfolio Management Consultant is responsible for producing and maintaining the following:

• Pilot Charter — one per assigned pilot, covering the customer problem, evidence of demand, partner, operating model, KPIs, budget and risk allocation. This document is developed and approved in stages.
• Learning agenda — what the pilot sets out to prove, agreed at the outset and tested against results.
• Compliance and approvals— obtaining every legal, regulatory, data protection and governance requirement the pilot triggers
• Product prototype or SOPs — the document containing pilot & product parameters, detailed process flows and other design details required to execute.
• Pilot Launch readiness confirmation — obtain subsidiary leadership or partner confirmation that agreements, funding, systems and governance requirements are in place before any go to market activity.
• Establish Performance tracker — periodic reporting against agreed KPIs and thresholds, flagging risk before a threshold is breached.
• Issue log — live record of problems encountered, root cause, action taken and impact.
• Midpoint report — short assessment of performance and emerging learnings partway through the pilot.
• Final recommendation memo — evidence-based case to scale, replicate, pivot or stop, agreed jointly with partners.

Qualifications & Experience

• Education: Bachelor's degree in business, finance, economics, international development, or a related field (or equivalent work experience)
• Experience:
• 3 to 5 years of experience in product management or digital product management, ideally in financial inclusion, microfinance, or emerging markets
• Strong understanding of credit products and lending mechanics is required, including how loan terms, underwriting, and repayment structures translate into product design and customer risk
• Demonstrated experience developing and launching customer-facing financial products such as loans, savings, or wallets, with familiarity in digital financial services and inclusive fintech solutions
• Experience working with cross-functional teams, including technology, credit risk, compliance, and field operations
• Exposure to or collaboration with low-income customer segments and field-based user research, particularly group lending and productive credit
• Working knowledge of agile product development, with experience on agile product teams preferred
• Familiarity with Miro, Jira/MS Planner, AI tools (Claude etc.) & other similar tools is a plus.

Duration and Level of Effort

This is a consultant engagement for an initial period of 12 months, with the possibility of extension based on portfolio needs and performance. The scope of assigned pilots will evolve based on changing business requirements and portfolio priorities.

Travel Requirements

• Travel to subsidiary locations will be required depending on assigned pilots, in line with FINCA travel policies requiring pre-approval.
• Consultant may be required to travel for 1 week per month, but flexibility will be needed for extended stays.
• Travel in economy class when traveling by air or rail.

<