Business Development Director

Manara is a startup whose mission is to unlock potential tech talent throughout emerging markets starting with the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), and with a social impact commitment to Palestine and women. The MENA region has the highest youth unemployment in the world (higher than subSaharan Africa) despite high levels of tertiary education. Women are particularly impacted: in Palestine, 52% of computer science students are women, but 83% of them end up unemployed.

We run the largest EdTech platform for computer scientists in MENA and have 40,000 engineers in our community. Our premium offering (a bootcamp that identifies the top computer scientists in the region, teaches them how to pass interviews, vets them, and helps them find amazing jobs (whether remote or on-site) has achieved a 90% job placement rate in partnership with top tech companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.

Our team previously worked at Google, Upwork, Nvidia, Amazon, TripleByte, and Gaza Sky Geeks. We are experienced founders, operators, and technologists.

Our investors include Stripe, Y Combinator, Seedcamp, Reid Hoffman (the founder of LinkedIn), and Eric Ries (the author of the book “The Lean Startup).

Role Overview: We are seeking an experienced and dynamic Business Development Director to join our team. This individual will be responsible for shaping and executing Manara’s business development strategy, driving growth on our B2B and B2G sides, and expanding our reach within the tech industry. The ideal candidate will thrive in the ambiguity of an early-stage startup, have a bias towards action and experimentation, and have a strong background in building relationships, fundraising, strategic planning and execution, operations, and people management.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategy Development:
  • Develop and implement a comprehensive B2B and B2G strategy aligned with Manara’s goals and objectives.
  • Identify new business opportunities and markets to drive growth and expansion.
  • Conduct market research to stay informed about industry trends, competitive landscape, and customer needs.
  • Continuously run experiments to make a case for strategic decisions.
  • Prioritize rigorously.
  • Contribute to overall company strategy.
• Execution and Implementation:
  • Lead the execution of business development and philanthropic fundraising initiatives, ensuring alignment with strategic goals. This role begins as an individual contributor role before growing into a management role after establishing processes and traction.
  • Establish and maintain relationships with key stakeholders, including potential clients, partners, and industry leaders.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop and deliver tailored solutions and proposals that meet client needs.
• Partnership Management:
  • Identify, negotiate, and secure strategic partnerships to enhance Manara’s offerings and market presence.
  • Manage ongoing relationships with partners to ensure mutual success and growth, including during any points of disappointment or tension.
  • Monitor and evaluate partnership performance, making adjustments as necessary to maximize value.
• Team Leadership:
  • Recruit, build and lead a high-performing and lean business development and philanthropic fundraising team, providing guidance, mentorship, and support.
  • Set clear goals and performance expectations, regularly assessing progress and providing feedback.
  • Foster a collaborative and innovative team culture focused on achieving results.
• Performance Tracking and Reporting:
  • Develop and implement metrics to measure the effectiveness of business development efforts using existing tools (e.g., Hubspot).
  • Prepare regular reports and presentations for senior management, highlighting key achievements and areas for improvement.

Your Qualifications

Note: Diverse candidates often screen themselves out of job applications if they don’t have all the qualifications. Please apply if you’re excited about the role - we’d love to see your application!

• Business development, sales, or fundraising: Proven experience in a role which involved business development or fundraising You don’t necessarily need to have experience in all three, but you need to be prepared to do everything at Manara and able to learn it quickly, whether conducting enterprise sales and building strategic partnerships with companies like Google, pitching foundations for donations of $3M, or setting up a process for us to place talent with thousands of startups at scale.

Execution: Strong execution skills, with a track record of driving business growth.You align stakeholders (e.g., volunteers, staff members) and make sure they get their commitments done on time. You deliver efficiently and on deadline, and provide status updates or get unblocked. You take ownership and get a lot done independently. You execute a variety of tasks with high reliability and few errors. You track & follow up on dozens of details.

• Entrepreneur: You are scrappy, comfortable with ambiguity and change. You experiment & iterate quickly. You take immense pride in creating solutions that will have long-term impact and you find their monetization opportunities. You build teams/organizations that thrive at each stage of their growth. You can figure out what Manara’s next service/product will be.
• Operations: You lean towards operations in all of your work. You make sure to set up systems (e.g., Hubspot) that allow us to operate effectively as a small team but also prepare us for future growth. You use these systems religiously and you get others on the team to use them.

• Collaboration/team player: You can work effectively with other people at Manara. For example, you partner closely with our CEO to prepare the strategy and set up calls with potential enterprise, donors, or government partners.
• Proposal Writing: You can prepare concept notes and proposals fast and get them to align with the different teams in Manara on our offerings.
• Bilingual: You must speak Arabic and be familiar with the Middle East & North Africa

Knock our socks off:

• Partnerships and network: You have a big network of businesses, foundations and/or government entities in MENA and can thus hit the ground running and grow our own team’s expertise in this area.
• Remote: You have experience working on effective remote teams & thrive in such environments. You work well across time zones (e.g., you communicate effectively via asynchronous oral & verbal channels).
• Passion for Manara’s mission of creating a community that unlocks the full potential of top tech talent in emerging markets, especially MENA (with a focus on Palestine & women)

Location

You must be located in MENA or nearby and able to travel there frequently. Strong preference for candidates based in Cairo, Riyadh, or Dubai. We also expect frequent travel to Europe, so having a passport that allows such travel is a big plus.

You must be willing to overlap with California until 12pm California time (10pm Egypt time) Monday through Thursday during your first 3 months of work, and potentially on an ongoing basis if we find that overlap with the founders remains important to your success.

The Manara team is a remote team with a hub in Cairo. About 40% of our company is based in Cairo and the team there meets once per week to co-work. The rest of our team flies in every 6 months for an onsite/offsite.

Our working days are Monday through Friday.

Why Join Manara?

• Opportunity to shape the future of tech talent development in emerging markets, starting with MENA and especially Palestine.
• Collaborative and innovative work environment with a stellar team.
• Competitive salary and benefits package.
• Commitment to professional growth and development.
• Social impact with a startup mentality.
• Flexibility and opportunities to travel.
• Get into the Y Combinator startup ecosystem.

If you are a strategic thinker with a passion for driving business growth and building impactful partnerships, we invite you to apply for the Business Development Director position at Manara.