Digitally empowering the “bottom billion’s” youth: for study, for work, for life
The Karta Initiative seeks a Product Owner to power our movement. You will shape, build, deliver, and iterate our digital product to achieve impact at scale, globally.
Who are we? Small, mighty mission, sustainable impact
The Karta Initiative is a social mobility movement for the “bottom billion’s” youth and 21st century opportunity. Our vision is of inclusive prosperity: a world where meritocracy - not accident of birth - drives position, power, influence and life outcomes. Each in our small organisation plays a critical role in achieving this mighty mission. We believe in combining people, partnerships, technology and finance to drive impact. Our intention is to remain a start- up, irrespective of our age and size.
Context
Karta was founded in 2016 by a coalition of like-minded individuals. Since then our inclusive movement has fused the unimaginable (world-leading opportunity) with the unreachable (impoverished youth). We apply lean business principles in our movement: stewarding funds with frugality, over-achieving on impact, underspending year on year, building skin-in-game partnerships, leveraging external funds, securing pro-bono/in-kind support and uncompromising on excellence. We move from idea to action, intentionally hypothesis driven and experimental. As continuous learners, we believe in original mistakes. Dynamic pivots, speed, agility, and the 80/20 rule characterise our action. Our action is interrogated by our vision, enabled by a passionate, skilled team who prioritise purpose and problem-solving over predictability.
Are you an impatiently optimistic movement-builder?
• Passionate about solving social mobility problems;
• Seeing the impossible as possible;
• Skilled in trust-based relationship-building across cultures, sectors and geographies;
• Able to lead by example, powering forward and empowering simultaneously;
• Gritty, diplomatic and measured in conflict, crisis, and challenge;
• Gracefully gutsy in asking for the unimaginable;
• Decisive in growing, scaling and letting go, amidst change and ambiguity;
• Able to take the tough decisions day-in, day-out;
• Up for (at times arduous) work in/across international time-zone;
• Succinct and impactful in communication (writing, listening, speaking);
• Insatiably curious about young people and the “opportunity marketplace”;
• Steeped in a ‘can-do’ attitude and a delight in continuous learning?
If your answer to the above is yes, a vital truth about us before you decide to keep reading: Ego - however skilled or experienced - simply does not work at Karta. Altruism, excellence, curiosity, open-mindedness, integrity and humility are in our DNA. If these are in your DNA too, and if you are engineered to behave as “We (not Me)”, read on to find about our Product Owner role.
Product Owner, The Karta Initiative: the role
The Product Owner will own and implement the product vision to include:
- product discovery: to identify and test how users will gain value from the product, how usage will grow, and how partners will derive value from the platform.
- recruitment and commissioning: involvement in technology and platform choice, building technical and UX capacity, and working with UX and technical teams.
- product ownership: ownership of the detail of the product, collaborating with engineers, designers and user researchers to rapidly iterate, test, analyse and deliver product.
The Product Owner must have exceptional experience in delivering at speed against these goals, whilst filling everyone in the organisation with enthusiasm. They will demonstrate an ability to move seamlessly from vision to detail - this is both a highly strategic role, and, in a small organisation, a totally hands-on one. They will have substantial experience in relevant techniques, tools and methodologies, including: extensive discovery experience; quantitative and qualitative user analysis (eg PowerBI); UX design, prototyping, automation and release cycle. Technical experience and a coding background is highly beneficial, but an ability to participate in technical decision making is essential. Developing a deep understanding of the user is of fundamental importance, so, while experience of youth poverty is not essential, an aptitude and experience in developing user understanding is critical. Education or educational technology experience is desirable.
Are you still reading?
If so, please email engage@karta-initiative.org with your CV, and cover letter.
