Founder | Entrepreneur
Peru - Ecuador - Colombia - Chile | April, 2019

The opportunity: be the founder of a successful business that promotes sustainable social impact in healthcare.

An innovative eyewear Mexican company serving a large and untapped market has successfully proven its model in Mexico responding to local needs while serving a large unattended market. The model has achieved outstanding financial success, scaled to a hundred stores and created a deep impact in the Mexican optical sector.

This opportunity is the result of an in-depth analysis of the Latin American optical sector aimed at finding the adequate conditions for a successful replication of the Mexican business model while increasing access to eyeglasses at scale in the region. The analysis gathered the knowledge and experience not only from the original founder and business model, but also from some of the most recognized international experts within the sector.

We are now looking for a talented individual to become a Founder | Entrepreneur to lead the implementation of the new company in Peru - Ecuador - Colombia - Chile.

This is a powerful opportunity for top entrepreneurs with a deep interest in social innovation and who are eager to replicate a social venture with the potential to improve the lives of those living with poor vision. You will be provided with the detailed knowledge of this proven business model, high quality mentorship to build your own business plan and be introduced to vetted investors. A successful candidate will have a substantial entrepreneurial and analytical skills, enormous ability to solve problems and to make things happen, and the passion to lead the business and team to reach their full potential.

Overview

The Founder | Entrepreneur will have the opportunity to harness the potential of markets to improve the lives of those living with poor vision and merge an understanding of what it takes to scale a business model while moving towards a long-lasting change.

The journey will include a first-of-its-kind In-Residence Program in Mexico where you will be working within the head office of the original company in Mexico where you will be given all the support and knowledge needed to design, launch and grow the business in your home country. Not only will you learn in detail how the original business works and has become successful in Mexico, but you will be introduced to powerful tools to help you reduce risks and maximize your odds of success. During the process, you will receive high quality mentorship from seasoned experts from the Miller Center of Social Entrepreneurship.

As a Founder | Entrepreneur you will have the opportunity to:

- Build your high impact venture to increase access to eye glasses for low income people in your country.

- Start your business from a privileged starting point having the opportunity to leverage from solid research, incredible experts and powerful networks.

- Take advantage of the Miller Center’s proven replication methodology and experience to reduce risks and maximize odds of success.

- Work along with an experienced team that already had success in building one of the most innovative optical retail chains in Latin America.

- Stop thinking about a more meaningful career and actually build it!

The Founder | Entrepreneur should exhibit the following experience and skills:

Experience:

- Experience in entrepreneurship, which means successfully initiated new structures and/or processes, ideally venture building and operation in a startup environment.

- +7 years of significant experience in challenging environments (management, investment banking, management consulting).

- Experience in handling complex tasks as well as being comfortable working under uncertainty.

- Considerable experience building and leading multi-disciplinary teams with a proven track record of direction, motivation and empowerment.

- Well versed in the challenges and opportunities associated with solving social problems by scaling inclusive businesses.

Skills:

- Risk-taker ready to invest what is needed to create long-term impact and financial outcomes.

- Strong analytical and quantitative problem-solving skills.

- Exceptional ability to create and develop commercial connections in order to build effective relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.

- Exceptional business acumen and ambition to build an impactful organization.

- Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, as well as cultural awareness and sensitivity, in order to build effective relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.

- Proven leadership abilities set direction, develop own work plan, organize activities to reach deadlines being the owner of the implementation, while working autonomously.

- Deep knowledge of the local entrepreneurial environment: regulations, landscape and players.

- Clear rolling-up-your-sleeves attitude.

- Flexible, quick thinking and learning mindset.

- Empathetic and resilient mainly when everything seems to be going against.

- Fluency in English and Spanish, and native in local language (if different).

Perks

Building is certainly not an easy task, we look for the best talent with a deep desire to create things that generate a real change in the world. People eager to work with like-minded and hard working entrepreneurs.

Our commitment to you is to provide:

- 2-month paid Entrepreneur In-Residence program in Mexico developed by the Miller Center of Social Entrepreneurship focused on giving you state-of-the-art support.

- Access actionable tools, high-quality mentorship, powerful networks and potential investors packed to help you build and grow your new business.

- The possibility of putting your skills at the service of real solutions to one of the most critical social problems in Latin America.

- A unique opportunity to have a front row seat to learn from a successful business and its leaders.

- An incomparable experience of learning and growth!

This opportunity is presented by EYElliance, Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Connovo

EYElliance is a multi-sector coalition that drives the global strategy to increase access to eyeglasses at scale, so that those in less developed countries can fully avail themselves of vital educational and economic opportunities. EYElliance has identified this Mexican optical company as a highly effective proven model that meets this need and is now investing in lowering the risk for the new entrepreneurs to replicate the model.

As the largest and most successful university-based social enterprise accelerator in the world, the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship is deeply involved in supporting the growth of social enterprise models. Recognizing the challenges that social entrepreneurs face, Miller Center has created mentor-accompanied methodologies to help social entrepreneurs more effectively apply replication and scaling processes to their enterprises. Miller has over 200 mentors, mostly from Silicon Valley, that work with entrepreneurs and share their expertise and hands-on experience via videoconference working sessions. Miller Center’s approach builds on a proven curriculum and mentorship, which has assisted more than 1,000 entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries—resulting in more than 380 million lives improved, transformed or saved.

Over the past three years, Miller Center’s Replication and Scaling team has worked with more than 50 entrepreneurs to expand their reach so that they can create greater impact more rapidly, with less risk and fewer investment requirements. Our leading-edge Replication and Scale-Out support increases return on investment, lessens investment requirements, and reduces the risks for impact investors.

Connovo is the first impact venture builder in Mexico with the mission of building high impact companies to create a more equitable Mexico in which we all have access to quality opportunities. As a venture builder, Connovo creates companies with high potential of impact, scale and profitability. However, instead of building them from scratch, Connovo leverages successful experiences in other parts of the world that can be adapted and adopted in the Mexican context.

If you think you have what it takes to lead the success of this new business in Latin America please apply. Applications are considered on a rolling basis. For questions, please contact entrepreneurs@connovo.org