Prodigy Finance – who we are
Prodigy Finance is a platform that enables financing for international postgraduate students at the world’s best universities, whilst delivering competitive financial and social returns to alumni, institutional and private investors.
This borderless and innovative model enables education loan financing to students from across the globe, whilst using predicted post-degree affordability rather than present-day salary. Since 2007, Prodigy Finance has processed over US$150 million through the platform to fund students from 112 nationalities, with repayment rates in excess of 99%.
Our team of 65 (and growing) is already truly global. Our head office is in London but the majority of the team are based in beautiful Cape Town. We also have an office in New York plus team members based across Europe with plans to expand into Asia in 2016.
We are funded by some of the best, pre-eminent institutions and entrepreneurs in the world. We’ve raised over $100 million from Credit Suisse, Balderton Capital and Deutsche Bank, and also private investors who themselves have grown $1bn+ companies such as Ed Wray, the Co-founder of Betfair and David Stevens, the Co-founder of Admiral Insurance.
With projected growth rates in excess of 400% for 2016, we are challenging the conventional investment mindset by providing products which focus on the development of human capital. Alumni, private and institutional investors alike are recognizing the benefits of an investment that delivers both a competitive financial return and also supports future leaders looking to differentiate themselves through higher education.
To date, Prodigy Finance has funded degrees at more than 65 of the of FT Top 100 ranked business schools, including INSEAD, Wharton, Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, London Business School, NUS, Saïd Business School (Oxford University) and Stanford.
Why this is an amazing opportunity
This role is perfect for an experienced Head of Product who wants to supercharge their career by experiencing first-hand what it is like to be part of an energetic, extremely fast growing start-up.
The sense of impact and reward will be huge. You will help to build a product which makes a very real difference in the world. Be a part of delivering socially responsible financial services to the masses; make it possible for students from more than 100 countries to obtain the finance to fulfil their dream of studying at the world’s top universities and schools.
We are a small non-hierarchical team; this means that you are going to get exposure to all aspects of our business immediately. You’ll gain as much accountability as you can handle and have a huge influence on scaling the company.
Our team is very international and very sociable; you will interact with everyone in the business around the world on a regular basis. The position will be based in Cape Town; our offices and customers are globally dispersed so you will need to travel.
One of our goals is to build one of the top Fintech teams and cultures anywhere in the world. This means putting a lot of time into ensuring we only hire people with exceptional potential, and creating the best working environment possible. If you want to work somewhere where you’re learning from some of the best brains in Fintech, this would be a good fit.
Why join Prodigy Finance
-Experience the excitement and learn from being part of an incredibly fast-growing young company. No kidding – 10x growth. Happening right now!
-Help to build a platform that helps to make a very real difference in the world.
-Enjoy the agility and flexibility offered by a startup culture. A sociable, relaxed and friendly work environment (with a serious coffee culture where you can wear shorts to work).
-Receive a competitive salary, and share options in the company. Since you will be playing a key role in making us successful, it is only right that you have a stake in the rewards of our success.
-Enjoy healthy snacks and team lunches once a week, drinks together as a company most Fridays, legendary team events and weekly yoga sessions.
-Live and work in one of the world’s ten best cities – http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/07/travel/world-best-cities/
What you will do in the role
The Head of Product acts as a key lynchpin for the company. You will unify product strategy and execution for Prodigy Finance; combining product vision and feedback from the senior leadership team, from Business Development, Technology, Operations, plus direct feedback from customers and key prospects.
You will gather and prioritise product and customer requirements, define the roadmap and work closely with the Technology team to continue to deliver outstanding products. As an equal priority, you will work with Business Development to ensure the Prodigy Finance product set aligns to our commercial strategy and helps us continue to grow as the leading player in the sector.
Specific responsibilities are to:
-Take responsibility for the product roadmap; ensure it dovetails into the commercial strategy and help to develop the overall company strategy.
-Design and implement a metrics-orientated approach to obtaining and analysing user feedback that solve actual user needs.
-Develop requirements documents, business cases and use cases for new product features.
-Conduct business-level verification and market testing of new features.
-Work very closely with all functional areas to ensure that users are at the forefront of all platform changes.
-Influence internal processes – particularly with engineering – to define workload and scheduling priorities.
-Work closely with marketing and business development during new product launches, contributing to white papers/case studies and other customer related collateral.
-Become an expert on other products in the marketplace including mobile
What you will be judged on
You’ll be measured on the following:
-Competitive Analysis: thorough understanding and assessment of the competitive landscape and benchmarks
-People Management of the Product Function – individual performance, team targets, motivation, behaviours, development and attrition
-Data Analysis and Project KPI improvements based on the data underpinning business cases for development, ability to build MVPs based on test and learn strategy (being able to pivot on data not showing progress)
-Development of the overall Project Roadmap and Strategic Agenda based Prioritization
-Product Improvement and automated MVT type testing to use data to base UX/UI decision changes
-Stakeholder Management and Cross Functional Engagement
What you need to be great at
-Personal stature, gravitas, a relationship builder; influencer; excellent communication and interpersonal skills across a number of stakeholder groups.
-People management directly of a team of product owners, UI/UX, community manager as well indirectly with key stakeholders
-Technical acumen; able to learn new paradigms quickly, and looks to continuously improve and find better ways of doing things. Strong technical understanding and able to translate requirements.
-Excellent critical judgment; able to make good decisions, be trusted, respected and dependable, be proactive and responsive, ask the right questions, raise flags at the right time, able to prioritize and plan workloads for the team.
-Analytical thinking capability; logical, systematic, strategic and pragmatic, strong attention to detail; both quantitative and qualitative; can process large amounts of data from disparate sources; able to learn new concepts and business issues quickly.
-Problem-solving aptitude; Able to conduct research to define problems and prepare responses to anticipated questions and queries. Able to make logical conclusions, anticipate obstacles, and consider different approaches.
-Bias to action; create ideas, think outside the box, problem solver and solution finder, proactive, use initiative to develop and improve.
-Structured in an unstructured environment; highly organised, ability to multi-task and project manage. Can correctly prioritise multiple issues, opportunities and creates structure, systems and processes from scratch.
Who we are looking for; track record must haves
-An executor who has demonstrable success in a product leadership role, where they needed to understand commercial goals, think strategically and balance the desire to create an end product which is beautiful but where quality and functionality are equally important.
-Experience of driving cross-functional teams, ideally internationally, to deliver against a relentlessly tight schedule.
-Proven track record of a role where you live and breathe customer experience, the end to end journey, UX and UI.
-Track record of delivering a mass market consumer product or service via a bespoke tech (digital) platform.
-Track record of delivering complex projects with agile development teams,
Experience that would be nice to have (but we’ll trade off if everything else fits)
-Ideally you will have a FinTech background
-Startup experience. Sometimes the earth moves beneath your feet at Prodigy Finance so you’ve got to be comfortable with ambiguity, able to wear lots of hats, and adapt easily as we continue to grow
The Prodigy Finance fit; attributes which run true in everyone at Team Prodigy
To be an A player at Prodigy Finance, you need to possess – in spades – the following attributes:
Innovative + Smart
Be curious enough to want to know more, think out the box, maybe even break the box, show initiative and be smart about it to find implementable, impactful solutions.
International + Accountable
Push yourself to be better every day. Work with others across the world, be resilient, add value and then hold yourself accountable. Encourage and celebrate each other.
Energetic + Fun
Sense of humour = survival. Bring energy and fun. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Work hard and find the time to play. We’re in this together.
Do you want to be our next Head of Product? Here’s what to do now:
If this sounds exciting and you’d like to have an informal chat, get in touch below and tell us why you want to work at Prodigy Finance.
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