Bidhaa Sasa is a women-focused start-up that uniquely combines financing and last-mile distribution of modern household goods in a one-stop shop for the rural heartlands of Kenya. We deliver life improving products, like solar systems or efficient cookstoves, to our clients’ doorsteps while making all products both accessible and affordable to the under-served and unbanked through consumer financing. Since our humble beginnings in 2015, we have reached over 80,000 clients with 9 branches presently across North Rift, Western, Nyanza and South Rift Kenya. Additionally, we are expanding our reach further with new locations in Kenya and Uganda.

We are looking for a naturally curious person and a problem solver to take ownership of all company data and its analysis. In addition, you enjoy coaching and mentoring a team of existing analysts hungry to learn and grow their capabilities.

As a company we are completing an IT systems migration, which will centralise our data allowing a deeper analysis. The Senior Data Analyst will report directly to one of the co-founders and will work closely with the rest of the senior management team to extract value from business data using advanced analytical methods and tools. 

The hire will derive knowledge and insights from both structured and unstructured data using statistical, algorithmic, data mining and visualisation techniques. For example, together with IT admin, the hire will define KPIs and build business intelligence dashboards for various levels of the organisation. Over time, the hire is expected to move from descriptive and diagnostic to more predictive and prescriptive analysis, using more advanced data mining and machine learning techniques to make business predictions and optimisations, for example stock forecast or route optimisation.

The hire will supervise and further develop capacity of a team of existing business analysts who interface between the different business units and the analysis and reporting of different data sets, from sales to household impacts to logistics data.

Key responsibilities of the role are:

1.       Data analysis and exploration

·         Guide and inspire Bidhaa Sasa about the business’ data-driven potential and strategy of data science, identify business opportunities and collaborate with the different business units.

·         Apply statistical and visualisation techniques to derive insights, solve business problems, generate new hypotheses about the underlying mechanics of business processes and test these hypotheses using quantitative methods. (For example, 90% of customers of a particular product are women. Repayments are great. Are repayments great because women buy them – do they have a better payment “morale” - or because the product saves more money than others? If fact, given that 90% of clients for that products are well-paying women, is the repayment for that product in fact bad?). 

 2.       Team management, collaboration and training

·         Bring best practices from other industries to build the company’s data analytics capabilities and grow the team, quickly adding new responsibilities,

·         Supervise an existing team of junior analysts in their own domain; this includes continually evaluating them and conducting their performance reviews, 

·         Grow their talent and develop their analytical skills to enhance how we are using data for measurement of business KPIs and decisions,

·         Work collaboratively with Business Support and Logistics teams with the aim of optimizing key business processes.

3.       Database integration and capability expansion 

·         Understand existing and new data sources.

·         Improve the design of existing and future databases and optimise the way data is collected, stored and displayed.

·         Review and manage data management projects and their KPIs for success. For example, further automation and intelligence upgrades of our data systems environment, such as auto generated restocking reminders based on demand forecasts.  These projects would be managed in conjunction with external IT experts.

·         You hold an advanced university degree/post-graduate qualification in maths, statistics, physics or similar. Don’t apply if you’ve forgotten your 101 statistics lessons;

·         You are a naturally curious person, problem solver, quick learner and someone who enjoys “breaking the mould”;

·         You have a minimum of five (5) years' work experience as a data analyst in a commercial environment;

·         You are certainly a “numbers person” i.e. possess in-depth analytical skills. You enjoy exploring data to draw insights and you’re in for some data nerdy debates with an ex-CERN particle physicist. But you also enjoy mentoring and growing staff (you will be coaching a team of analysts hungry to grow and excel);

·         You can demonstrate your expertise in the tools that are necessary to rapidly fetch, clean, and analyse large data sets and visualise findings in a clear and compelling way;

·         Experience with SalesForce and Tableau is an added advantage.

·         You’d like to look beyond the obvious and happy to leave the well-trodden path to others. Leaving the world in a better place isn’t just a phrase for you, you want to make it happen.

·         You believe in the potential of rural communities to improve their family's lives and are eager to ensure everyone has an equal part in development. We put our rural client at the centre of all our decisions and actions.

·         You enjoy the thrill of start-up life, where we fail and learn from it, where things change fast, and every day brings new challenges. We are a small team working tirelessly to achieve something that has not been done before!

·         You are excited about working in one of the most vibrant countries and cities of Africa. You like working in a diverse and cross-cultural team.

·         You want your ideas to be heard and participate in business strategy: Our team is collaborative and supportive. We listen to insights from the field, because we know that otherwise we can't succeed.

·         This is a full-time position based in Nairobi or remotely.  Remote applicants must be open to travelling to Kenya every two months or so (for a week at a time) to engage with the team and clients

·         Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled

·         Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted