Farid Kelekun

On Purpose London April 2020 Fellow.

Can you tell me about your background and your career prior to On Purpose?

My background is fintech. I first worked as a credit analyst at iwoca, gaining key insights into how SMEs operate and the day to day challenges of running a business. I also led projects within that team and in another role as a product manager. With product management specifically, I was responsible for setting the strategy for a data and analytics team, prioritising tasks day to day, and managing team and stakeholder communication.

I gained lots of experience working in a tech-dominated environment, with a culture of agility, constant prioritisation and building unique solutions in house.

What are your greatest strengths?

• SME credit and business analysis
• Strategy and project management
• Problem solving
• Stakeholder management and engagement

Can you tell me more about your placements?

I am working at the British Red Cross in the Innovative Finance team. The team is looking at how to use financial tools to further humanitarian response and plug the gap between the growing demand for humanitarian funding and the limited supply of it.

My role was specifically to look at the strategy of the team, identify stakeholders to engage with to reach our goals(and how to engage with them) and project manage the team's activities. I also worked on an organisational readiness piece, assessing British Red Cross's ability to be able to use these tools at scale in its own programmes.

How did you find making the move to join On Purpose?

It was daunting at first, to start new roles in a completely different sector to what I was used to. That feeling was quickly forgotten, as I got to know great new colleagues and realised a lot of the skills I picked up in the past were useful in new contexts. The support of my cohort and the On Purpose team helped massively too, as it has all year.