Senior Manager, Gender Inclusion and Women Entrepreneurship Development; Microfinance Programme

Job purpose

Leading the Women Entrepreneurship Development initiatives in Microfinance and Creating a gender responsive and inclusive work environment in Microfinance where 5.5 million women clients and more than 35000 staffs.

About the role

BRAC is an international development organisation founded in Bangladesh that partners with over 145 million people living with inequality and poverty globally to create sustainable opportunities to realise potential. Working at BRAC is not like any other job. It is a platform where you can bring about real change for people who need it the most. We are not just dreaming of a better world, we are building it. Join us to find the way.

BRAC Microfinance provides people who cannot access traditional financial banking services with access to a suite of financial services, including loans, savings and microinsurance. Join the BRAC Microfinance team to help build a more financially-inclusive society, where everyone can access finance when they need it - safely, responsibly and sustainably.

Job Purpose: The Senior Manager, Gender Inclusion and Women Entrepreneurship Development, is responsible for the strategic vision and operational excellence of gender-transformative initiatives within the Microfinance Programme. The primary purpose of this role is to drive women’s economic empowerment at scale by bridging the gender gap in financial access, fostering large-scale female entrepreneurship, and institutionalizing an inclusive, leadership-driven workplace culture across a 3,300-branch network.

Key Responsibilities:

• Oversee the full lifecycle (design, planning, monitoring, and evaluation) of women’s entrepreneurship initiatives across 64 districts and 3,300+ branches.
• Lead high-impact projects, including the establishment of 10,000 home-based daycare centers and the socioeconomic reintegration of 1,000 returning RMG workers into entrepreneurship.
• Direct the pilot and nationwide scaling of norm-changing interventions and digital financial models across 250+ branches to bridge the gender gap in financial access.
• Cultivate a gender-responsive workplace for 18,200+ female staff through sensitization training, affirmative action (e.g., motorbike training), and the removal of mobility barriers.
• Architect mentorship pipelines and manage digital feedback mechanisms like "Moner Kotha" to address workplace challenges and promote women's career progression.
• Collaborate with Gender Justice & Diversity (GJD), Safeguarding, and Disability Inclusion units to ensure a unified approach to internal equity.
• Embed gender equality targets and KPIs into the Annual Operating Plan (AOP), departmental budgets, and organizational log-frames.
• Monitor progress against gender benchmarks and provide data-driven briefs to Senior Management regarding inclusion trends and entrepreneurship outcomes.
• Oversee the documentation of best practices, lessons learned, and success stories to drive continuous improvement and evidence-based program design.
• Design engagement strategies for Village Organizations (VO) to increase awareness of women’s rights and improve financial literacy among female clients.
• Lead training programs focused on entrepreneurship and technical skills to empower women clients and staff within the microfinance ecosystem.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for external stakeholders, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a2i, CDF, and academic partners (BIGD/BIED).
• Represent the Microfinance Programme in national and international forums, contributing to global dialogues on women’s economic empowerment and gender-inclusive finance.

Safeguarding Responsibilities:

• Ensure the safety of Programme Participants, people who come into contact with the organisation and team members from any harm, abuse, neglect, harassment and exploitation including sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) to achieve the programme's goals of safeguarding implementation. Act as a key source of support, guidance and expertise on safeguarding for establishing a safe working environment.
• Practice, promote and endorse the issues of safeguarding policy among team members and ensure the implementation of safeguarding standards in every course of action.
• Follow the safeguarding reporting procedure in case any reportable incident takes place and encourage others to do so.

Additional Job Requirements:

• Deep understanding of gender-mainstreaming strategies, social norm change, and the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) framework.
• Comprehensive knowledge of microfinance operations, digital financial services (DFS), and the barriers women face in accessing formal credit.
• Familiarity with the SDGs (specifically SDG 5), Bangladesh’s national gender policies, and the requirements of global donors like the Gates Foundation.
• Expertise in the Logical Framework Approach (LFA), Result-Based Management (RBM), and Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) systems at a national scale.
• Understanding of MSME (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) development, market linkages, and the specific challenges of home-based business models.
• Ability to translate gender goals into actionable Annual Operating Plans (AOP) and manage multi-million-dollar project budgets.
• Relevant government agencies (such as a2i), leading NGOs (including BRAC), and international funding and development agencies.
• Proficiency in interpreting gender-disaggregated data to provide strategic briefs and evidence-based recommendations to senior leadership.
• High-level communication skills to represent the program in international forums and influence internal policy changes.
• A mindset geared toward piloting digital solutions and adapting models to meet the changing needs of RMG workers and rural entrepreneurs.

Educational Requirements: Master's in any discipline from any recognized university.

Experience Requirements: Minimum 5 years of relevant working experience.

Benefits: Festival Bonus, Contributory Provident Fund, Gratuity, Performance Bonus, Health and Life Insurance, Maternity/ Paternity Leave, Wellness Centre Facility, Day Care Facility, and others as per policy.

BRAC believes that everyone we work with—including our staff, programme participants, partners, and the communities we serve—has the right to be protected from all forms of harm, abuse, neglect, harassment, and exploitation, including sexual exploitation and abuse.

We uphold human dignity and inclusion for all, regardless of age, race, religion, gender, disability, ethnic origin, or socio-economic background. We are an equal opportunity employer. We especially encourage those who have shown resilience—who have faced personal struggles, bounced back, and continued to move forward—to apply.

Selected candidates will have to go through a rigorous reference and background checking process which may include police verification.

This position is open for Bangladeshi nationals only.

BRAC does not charge any fees at any stage of the recruitment process.

Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA) certificate number: 00488-00186-00065

Key responsibilities

1. Leading the Women Entrepreneurship Development Initiatives (campaign across 64 districts, project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation) in all the 2500 branches with more than 5.5 million women across the country.

2. Leading the Day Care Project with the aim to establish 10,000 homebased Day Care centers to solve the challenges of lower- and middle-income working women and building entrepreneurship of 10,000 women.

3. Leading a project of 1000 returning RMG workers to engage them in entrepreneurship by providing sewing machine and financial support.

4. Leading a pilot project on Gender Transformative Microfinance in 250 branches in 10 divisions to ensure women’s economic empowerment through capacity development, financial support and norm changing interventions.

5. To create awareness on rights and empowerment of 5.5 million women, VO engagement, financial literacy sessions are arranged.

6. Creating Gender Responsive work environment by building awareness, arranging sessions and training, and affirmative actions for women employees in BRAC Microfinance program for 35,000 staffs in 2500 branches.

7. Promotion and activities on women’s leadership like mentorship, pool for next role, special Forums and Apps like “Moner Kotha” to know the challenges and complaints for all the 10,000 Women Staff.

8. Reviewing or creating affirmative actions for example: motorbike driving training for the women staff by which already 2000 women staff are trained, to reduce gender discrimination in work place

9. preparing plan for achieving gender equality as well as ensure to have this in annual budget, Log-frame and annual operations plan (AoP), Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework in Microfinance program, following up the progress according to plan.

10. Partnership management with relevant external stakeholders like Gates Foundation, a2i, CDF, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, BRAC Institute of Education and Development, etc and inter-programs of BRAC and Inter Unit of Microfinance collaboration are part of this role.

11. Plan, execute and coordinate all the central initiatives of Gender Justice and Diversity Program, Safeguarding Unit and Disability Inclusion Unit for all the 35,000 staffs of BRAC Microfinance.

Required knowledge

Specialization in Gender and Microfinance Operation; women empowerment, Have training on men engagement in gender equality

Required skills

Communication, Computer, Partnership Management, Strategic Planning, Operational Excellence

Required competencies

People, development and Management, Collaboration, Agility, Human centered Design

Additional requirements

Communication, Computer, Partnership Management, Strategic Planning, Operational Excellence

Specialization in Gender and Microfinance Operation; women empowerment, Have training on men engagement in gender equality

People, development and Management, Collaboration, Agility, Human centered Design

Education

Master

Experience

5