Job Title: Gender Expert Lead

Team: Growth Strategy & Platform Operations

Reporting to: Manager, Growth Strategy & Platform Operations

Grade Level: Lead

Role type: 10-12 month full-time contract (subject to renewal)

SunFi.co is leveraging its leadership experience as a Distributed Energy Provider (DEP) to build a Clean Energy FinTech platform that helps consumers access the most trusted solar and clean energy solutions that deliver the greatest savings. SunFi collaborates with the best equipment suppliers, installers, and financiers to deliver clean energy consumers amazing solar experiences to help catalyze the transition to clean energy across Nigeria, and eventually, across Africa.

As SunFi grows its presence in agricultural markets and last-mile communities, we are expanding our focus on women and youth who power Nigeria’s food systems. Many women in cold-chain trading rely heavily on expensive petrol or diesel, limiting profit margins. SunFi is launching a major effort—supported by an external catalytic grant—to help young women agricultural traders and women field sales agents adopt cleaner, more reliable solar technologies that improve their livelihoods. This role will be central to ensuring that women are not just reached, but genuinely benefit and advance as entrepreneurs in the energy-agriculture space.

About the Role

The Gender Expert Lead will serve as SunFi’s focal point for integrating gender equity into our agricultural energy access initiatives, with a strong initial focus on delivering the outcomes of a donor-funded project that supports young women in cold-chain and other agrifood market segments.

This is a strategic, hands-on, field-engaged role responsible for designing gender-responsive approaches, supporting recruitment and training of women, strengthening safety and inclusion systems, coaching field teams, and ensuring all gender-related grant targets and reporting obligations are met on time. The role will also help SunFi build long-term capabilities to support women-led microenterprises beyond the grant period. This role will drive the achievement of our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) goals to ensure all the young women we work with are in dignified and fulfilling jobs, as well as the overall theory of change of the grant donors.

The Gender Expert Lead will work closely with the Agrifood Solar Sales Lead, Finance Lead, Operations, Growth, and leadership teams to ensure SunFi delivers meaningful and measurable outcomes for women in agricultural markets.

Job Responsibilities

Gender Strategy and Program Integration

● Lead the design and implementation of SunFi’s gender strategy for agricultural energy programs, with a strong focus on young females in cold-chain markets and young female field agents.

● Translate gender goals into practical field processes relating to recruitment, onboarding, training, aftercare, and beneficiary tracking.

● Ensure that SunFi’s market-facing activities—including agent engagement, household sensitization, and trader onboarding—are gender-responsive and aligned with the realities of young women in Lagos markets.

● Advise on culturally appropriate approaches for reaching women with limited mobility, limited literacy, or complex caregiving duties.

● Support the Agrifood Solar Sales Lead in building inclusive ward-level penetration strategies that leverage women’s community networks, market associations, & unions.

Program Delivery and Cross-Functional Coordination

● Ensure gender-related impact targets are achieved, including recruitment, training, business growth, and asset-use outcomes for young women agricultural traders and women agents.

● Work closely with the Agrifood Solar Sales Lead and Finance Lead to meet all reporting requirements tied to the grant, ensuring timely submission of gender metrics, documentation, and evidence.

● Maintain oversight of required gender-sensitive KPIs, including agent recruitment, agent progression, asset adoption, repayment behaviour, and business performance of women traders.

● Ensure thorough documentation, including beneficiary lists, training attendance, market visit logs, safety records, photos, & any materials required for donor reporting.

● Drive achievement of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) indicators, working with internal data and operations teams to ensure data is adequately captured and used to adapt programming.

● Identify and escalate risks affecting women’s participation or safety, proposing actionable solutions to the Agrifood Solar Sales Lead.

● Drive ad-hoc mini initiatives within SunFi to continue to drive female empowerment, as well as other tasks as assigned by the Manager or VP of Growth Strategy and Platform Operations

Gender-Sensitive Training & Capacity Building

● Develop and deliver training content tailored to young women agents and women agricultural traders, covering but not limited to: financial literacy, basic entrepreneurship, energy efficiency for cold-chain, solar product understanding, safe working practices, confidence etc.

● Train SunFi staff, field agents, and partners on gender sensitivity, safeguarding, and inclusive communication.

● Support women agents and beneficiaries with coaching and mentoring structures to strengthen performance and retention.

● Strengthen peer-learning groups and community circles that help women troubleshoot challenges and grow in confidence.

Safeguarding, Safety, and Inclusion

● Lead SunFi’s implementation of safe working practices for women in markets and in the field.

● Ensure all staff and field agents understand and sign SunFi’s code of conduct and safeguarding guidelines.

● Drive the operationalization of safe spaces, safe travel protocols, and grievance channels for women.

● Monitor safety incidents, escalate concerns, and recommend changes to operations where needed.

● Engage spouses, family members, and market leaders where cultural dynamics require consent or support.

Learning, Insights, and Continuous Improvement

● Capture and analyze field insights on what enables or prevents young women in cold-chain and agrifood markets from adopting productive-use energy solutions.

● Develop briefs, case studies, and lessons-learned summaries for internal and donor use.

● Use MEL insights to recommend improvements to pricing, training, recruitment, and after-sales systems.

● Support leadership in integrating successful gender approaches into SunFi’s long-term strategy beyond the grant.

Attributes & Skills

Technical & Professional Skills

● Strong grounding in gender concepts, women’s economic empowerment, and social inclusion, ideally within agricultural or market-based programs.

● Experience designing or operationalizing a theory of change for women-focused programs, including translating it into practical field activities.

● Ability to support Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning activities by guiding evidence collection, documenting behavior change, and ensuring gender-sensitive indicators are tracked correctly.

● Proven experience working on donor-funded or non-profit programs, especially those focused on women, youth, or livelihoods.

● Strong analytical abilities to interpret qualitative and quantitative gender data and convert insights into operational improvements.

● Ability to write clear, compelling reports, case studies, and progress updates for internal teams and external partners.

● Comfort working with digital data collection tools and Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) for documentation and analysis.

● Familiarity with safeguarding, inclusion, and community-based engagement practices is an added advantage.

Soft Skills

● Strong facilitation and training skills; able to communicate concepts simply to diverse audiences.

● High cultural competence, empathy, and sensitivity to women’s lived realities, family dynamics, and market norms.

● Excellent oral and written communication skills with the ability to engage confidently with traders, agents, community leaders, and SunFi teams.

● Ability to work cross-functionally and influence without formal authority.

● Strong problem-solving skills and an adaptive mindset suited to fast-paced field environments.

● High level of integrity, discretion, and comfort working with confidential or sensitive information.

● Passion for advancing women’s economic agency and improving access to productive-use energy solutions

Qualifications

● Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences, Gender Studies, Development Studies, Sociology, Public Policy, or related field.

●Minimum of 5 years of experience in gender programming, community-based development, market systems, or women-focused livelihood programs.

● Demonstrated experience working with women in informal markets, agricultural value chains, or last-mile distribution.

● Strong understanding of gender norms in Nigeria, particularly those affecting mobility, safety, entrepreneurship, and household decision-making for young women.

● Comfortable working in market environments, conducting field visits, and engaging local leaders.

● Solid experience with documentation, donor reporting, and evidence generation.

● Ability to build trust quickly with community stakeholders, women traders, informal leaders, and field teams.