Alter finds and scales the best tech businesses in frontier markets. Our mission is to transform developing countries through high-growth entrepreneurship. At Alter, we believe that traditional international aid fails to get at the root cause of extreme poverty: a lack of sustainable and scalable value creation. So, we find the top tech businesses in the developing world that have the potential to create economic opportunity at scale in their home country. Alter currently works with ventures in Haiti, Cuba, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Bangladesh – with expansion this year to Kenya and Nigeria. So far, the Alter portfolio of 17 ventures has created 1,200 jobs, grown their revenues by over $100M, and have provided basic services to over 2 million people living in poverty around the world.
Alter was founded three years ago out of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Our financiers and board include the co-founder of Ripple, the Managing Partner of McKinsey North America, the co-founder of Kiva, the MD of Endeavor Catalyst and the MD of Omidyar Network, among other thought leaders. We are passionate about developing a diverse and fulfilling work culture that thrives on autonomy, ownership, excellence and continuous improvement.
Chief Investment Officer
As the Chief Investment Officer (CIO), you will join Alter’s executive management team and be a general partner / co-founder of the fund. The CIO will define and lead Alter’s investment process. For this, you will work directly with Alter’s leadership and regional directors to:
- Identify, diligence, and close on compelling investment opportunities
- Work closely with Alter’s portfolio companies on strategic direction and growth initiatives
- Cultivate a community of LPs and lead efforts to raise capital for the Alter investment fund
This role offers you an opportunity to own Alter’s investment process, providing frontier market entrepreneurs with the risk capital and strategic guidance they need to build transformational businesses.
For the past few years Alter has operated primarily in an advisory capacity, matching businesses with experts, connecting them to financiers, helping recruit full-time talent, and training their leaders. However, as Alter transitions towards an investment model, you will be tasked with building out our investment process and developing our internal sourcing, underwriting, due diligence, and portfolio management capabilities. As such, you will lead the due diligence and broader decision-making process for all prospective investments in Alter’s target markets. The work will provide an opportunity to work directly with a number of teams across the world and with the best tech entrepreneurs on the ground in frontier markets where great need meets great opportunity.
The role will require you to build out and manage Alter’s network of institutions and individuals in Alter’s geographies of operation. Working in concert with our regional directors, you will help Alter develop an intimate understanding of the investable universe in our target markets, meeting with business leaders and building market maps of the tech and tech-enabled businesses operating in each city of focus. We are building a community of the best tech entrepreneurs and investors across the globe.
Key Initiatives
- Fundraising: Contribute to our effort to raise capital from a select group of Limited Partners
- Investment process: Lead Alter’s investment process, including sourcing, evaluating, underwriting, and structuring investment opportunities
- Portfolio management: Build a portfolio of best-in-class businesses in Alter’s target markets, and provide these businesses with strategic guidance
- Brand building: Help Alter establish a presence in its target markets as a key player and value-added contributor to the technology ecosystem; Includes developing Alter’s network in regions of focus
- Team: Recruit and build a team of high-quality investment professionals as we grow; provide these individuals with mentorship as they develop into key contributors to the Alter team
Requirements
- 5+ years of investing experience at a top tech-focused Venture Capital or Growth Equity Firm.
- Excellent, attributable investment track record at an established venture capital or growth equity firm (with realized exits)
- Demonstrated ability to source compelling investment opportunities and build meaningful relationships with current and prospective portfolio companies
- Experience as a value-added partner for growing portfolio companies, as either a board member or board observer
- Intimate and thoughtful understanding of technology and the broader technology/startup ecosystem (i.e. products, trends, companies, investors)
- Excellent analytical ability. Candidates must be able to analyze and interpret data effectively in order to extract data-driven insights
- Entrepreneurial mindset, independent working style and excellent project management skills. You drive to outcomes often and with success.
- Exceptional interpersonal skills, preferably in multi-cultural and international contexts.
- Excellent written and verbal communication. We are a distributed team across the planet.
- Ability to travel internationally 33% of the year
- Alignment with Alter’s values and passion for the markets in which Alter operates
- MBA (preferred but not required)
- Experience investing and operating in developing markets (preferred but not required)
If interested, please apply here.
