Job Title: Consultant, Product Management
Reporting to: Managing Director
Location: Toronto, ON
Travel Required: 30%
Terms: Contract - Estimated 8 Months, to end of 2025

About Raising The Village
We are Raising The Village (RTV), an international development organization and a registered charity on a mission to end ultra-poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Raising The Village is a fast-growing organization on an accelerated growth path. Our team in East Africa and North America works together to lift communities out of ultra-poverty in last-mile villages. We operate at the intersection of direct implementation and advanced data analytics to inform progress, decision-making, and impact.

To date, we have supported more than one million people through our innovative holistic approach. We have achieved this tremendous growth with the support of our incredible partners from all around the globe who believe in our model and impact. Find out more about our programs and impact at www.raisingthevillage.org.

Background on Venn

RTV's Venn ecosystem is the organization's data and technology unit (based in Uganda and reporting to the Managing Director), supporting program design, monitoring, evaluation, learning, and adaptation. Venn integrates advanced analytics, AI, and digital tools to optimize decision-making and maximize program efficiency. Venn's portfolio of products, including:

• Custom software solutions for implementers and communities for data-informed insights, program learning resources and decision-support tools
  • Custom data analytics tools and platforms
  • AI-powered knowledge and decision support products
  • Custom software solutions for planning and program design
• At the core of RTV's digital ecosystem is the Implementation Application (microservices architecture), a software tool that serves as the primary interface for frontline staff, community members, and replication partners. This application currently includes self-reporting on program activities, household check-ins to monitor household participation and input distribution tracking. The vision for this product is to continuously evolve into a comprehensive job-aide/program delivery tool for multiple user categories, integrating further data analytics (descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and eventually prescriptive) to support real-time decision-making, and ensure field staff and partners have access to relevant knowledge, training, program methodologies, and adaptive AI-powered tools.
• While the Implementation Application serves program teams and partner communities, RTV is also developing custom software and data products for end-to-end integration of digital solutions (from project planning and designing to delivery and evaluation) to enhance scalability and replication.

Role Description

Raising The Village (RTV) is seeking a highly experienced Product Management Consultant to provide product management leadership and execution oversight for Venn. This role aims to refine and structure our product management approach, ensuring that RTV's data, learning, and technology solutions are user centered, cost-effective, scalable, and impact-driven. The Consultant would be expected to refine these systems, strengthen integration across departments, and position RTV as a leader in technology-enabled development solutions for eradicating poverty within the last mile communities in SSA.

Key Responsibilities
Product Strategy & Vision

• Define and refine Venn's long-term product strategy, ensuring alignment with RTV's mission, impact goals, and sector trends.
• Develop an integrated product ecosystem that connects real-time data analytics, program learning resources, and decision support tools.
• Establish success metrics and measurement frameworks for product adoption, usability, and contribution to RTV's impact goals

• Provide product lifecycle oversight from ideation through execution and post-launch optimization.
• Implement agile methodologies and best practices in product development, ensuring continuous iteration and user feedback loops.
• Ensure that products meet usability, data security, and compliance standards.
• Guide the integration of AI, machine learning, predictive analytics and learning content into product development.
• Utilize real-time data insights to iterate and optimize product adoption.

• Conduct field research, stakeholder interviews, and usability studies to assess how end-users interact with the tools.
• Identify barriers to adoption and engagement and propose improvements based on research insights.
• Utilize A/B testing methodologies to refine product features and improve user experience.
• Develop and test products for multiple stakeholders, including frontline staff, community champions, and replication partners, ensuring usability and practical application.
• Ensure data and technology solutions are human-centered, particularly for low-connectivity, last-mile environments.

• Act as an advisor to RTV leadership on best practices for product structuring, integration, and scale-up strategies.
• Ensure seamless collaboration between Venn's Data Insights, Data Engineering, AI/ML, Software Development, and Implementation and Applied Learning teams.
• Provide guidance on potential co-development, or licensing opportunities for RTV's digital tools.
• Collaborate with IT to integrate robust data and software security protocols into every phase of product development.

• Assess and recommend organizational structures, talent needs, and capacity-building initiatives to improve product management.
• Develop training sessions and materials to strengthen internal adoption and stakeholder engagement with Venn products.
• Define job scope, responsibilities, and organizational placement for any future product leadership hire.

Required Skills and Expertise

• Extensive experience (10+ years) in product management, ideally building data-informed solutions, and scaling digital solutions, ideally in development contexts.
• Strong experience building data-centric products with AI components.
• Proven experience managing cross-functional teams.
• Strong understanding of agile methodologies, product strategy, and impact-driven technology solutions.
• Experience in international development, field-based programming, or working in low-connectivity environments is an asset.
• Exceptional strategic thinking, leadership, and stakeholder engagement skills.

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