The Ghana Climate Innovation Centre: Our Work and our Mission

The Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) is a pioneering business incubator and accelerator with a unique focus on supporting small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana’s ‘Green Economy’.  The Centre is an institute of Ashesi University, one of Africa’s leading liberal arts universities with a mission to raise ethical, entrepreneurial leaders with the courage to transform the continent.

GCIC’s work is at the nexus of private enterprise, climate change, economic development, and ecological prosperity.  We support an exceptional set of transformational businesses and entrepreneurs who are pioneering adaptive and mitigating solutions for climate change issues in Ghana. 

Since commencement of business incubation activities in June 2017, GCIC has supported 196 enterprises in Ghana’s small and growing business sector who have climate innovation in five key economic sectors, namely: climate smart agriculture, solar power, energy efficiency, domestic waste management, and water management and purification.  To date, these enterprises have performed admirably to, inter alia, scale their businesses, generating cumulative revenues of over US$9.4m, sequester 639,940MTs of CO2 emissions, raised early or growth stage financing of over US$2.7m, created 2,145 jobs, and have served over 6m Ghanaian customers with their climate-smart goods and services. 

Ghana’s economic growth is driven by SMEs, with SMEs accounting for more than 70% of businesses in Ghana.  Given this, developing and enhancing entrepreneurship professionalism among Ghana’s SMEs so that they can start, operate and grow their businesses more successfully using international best practice (together with improving their knowledge base and building their understanding of the practicalities of private enterprise) is a prerequisite to ensure that SMEs, and especially SMEs with important climate innovation that respond to the climate emergency, have the capacity to commercially succeed and to go the long-haul with their business.

Through a competitive national search and selection process, the GCIC identifies and supports enterprises in its incubator and accelerator with a range of interventions and services, including business advisory services, technical services in the development, prototyping and testing of their innovation, climate policy advocacy and regulatory support services, market growth and access support as well as financial grants. 

DIRECTOR PARTNERSHIPS, ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INVESTMENTS

Reports to: Ashesi President & Board

Purpose

Provider is being hired as the Executive Director of the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) at Ashesi University to sustainably manage the Centre’s activities to meet its objectives.

Job Responsibilities

Provider will be the Executive Director of the Centre and reports directly to the President of Ashesi University.

The Provider’s role includes but is not limited to:

• Set and implement the overall strategic direction for the GCIC to meet its objectives and deliver on its targets.
• Ensure high quality delivery of the full range of GCIC advisory, technical, policy and financing services for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) including as a liaison to sources of financing through syndicating commercial investors and bank financing.
• Successfully recruit and manage staff on a day-to-day basis ensuring performance against agreed objectives with regular reviews and development.
• Brand and promote the GCIC to ensure high visibility and a positive image of the Centre and its sponsors.
• Act as spokesperson for the GCIC in discussions with stakeholders and donors, in conferences and other relevant forums as well as at media events.
• Provide strategic direction for the content and delivery GCIC’s women entrepreneurs transformation program and related activities
• Lead the effort in business development to increase funding for GCIC activities and sustainability of the GCIC.
• Maintain strong and effective relations with the government of Ghana, donors to the Centre, relevant stakeholders and industry associations to ensure continuous dialogue on relevant policy areas.
• Ensure compliance to legal and fiduciary requirements of the government of Ghana and the finance and procurement procedures of GAC.
• Prudently manage finances and other resources, including helping incubated businesses manage their resources where necessary.
• Report to the GCIC Advisory Committee on a regular basis as required by the Governance policy.
• Build an evidence base of results and lead the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in accordance with the M&E requirements of the GCIC, showcasing successful enterprises.
• Maintain strong and effective relations with the government of Ghana, donors to the Centre, relevant stakeholders and industry associations to ensure continuous dialogue on relevant policy areas.
• Undertake any additional duties assigned by GCIC and mutually agreed.

Working Conditions

• The job may require working outside office hours to meet deadlines and address operational emergencies in some cases.
• The job will require on-site visits to GCIC clients located from across Ghana. This may happen on a regular basis.
• International and domestic travel may occur from time to time, including to interact with the global network of CICs, and the global green entrepreneurial ecosystem community.

Qualifications and Requirements

• A Masters’ degree in a relevant field is preferable. However, a Bachelors’ degree with substantial track record of excellent executive management capability will be considered.
• Fifteen (15) or more years’ experience in managing projects especially at the early stages of project development.
• Entrepreneurial experience in having successfully started and/or run a business preferably in energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, waste management, or water purification will be considered a strong advantage.
• Demonstrated understanding of issues relating to enterprise development. It will be an advantage to have been involved in the management of a seed fund, business incubator, accelerator, or SME support organisation.
• Experience in fundraising will be considered a strong plus.
• Experience of working with women entrepreneurs within the context of international development, women’s economic empowerment as well as business advisory services
• Demonstrated rigorous understanding of the local context including the business and investment climate in Ghana and the Sub-Saharan Region in the private and public sectors and ability to interact with key stakeholders, from both public and private sectors.
• Experience in budgeting and financial management of small organizations.
• Evidence of networking ability. It will be an advantage to have established networks with the business community in Ghana and the Sub-Saharan Region at large.
• Excellent team player with management experience in leading a lean, highly motivated, expert team with evidence of past results in relation to start-up organizations.
• Proven interpersonal and leadership skills, results-oriented mindset including ability to motivate and lead teams and engender trust amongst clients, employees and partners.
• Demonstrated passion, interest, knowledge and understanding about the dynamics of climate change.
• Strong mentoring, communications and personnel management skills.
• Comfortable working with companies that operate in the climate technology space, at various levels of technological sophistication.
• Ability to utilize appropriate software packages and technologies such as Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Adobe Acrobat, as per the demands of the job.
• Ability to multi-task under tight deadlines.
• Must be fluent in spoken and written English. French as a second language is a plus.

How to Apply:

Kindly send CV and Cover Letter to info@ghanacic.org Emails should be titled “Executive Director”. Deadline for applications is 15th April 2025.