Overview of the Acumen Fund Fellows Program
Through the Fellows Program, our goal is to build an entrepreneurial bench of professional talent with strong financial and operational skills, experience in low-income markets, and the moral imagination to build enterprises that meet the needs of low-income consumers. Each year, Acumen Fund recruits highly talented and passionate young professionals to reflect on their role as leaders, build their leadership capacity, and provide much needed management support to our investees. Click here to learn more.
The Fellowship Year
Acumen Fund's year long fellowship begins with seven weeks of intensive and multidisciplinary leadership training in our New York City office. Training topics range from self reflection to negotiation and storytelling training to functional topics such as investment and valuation techniques and design, marketing and operations. The Fellows also meet with leaders from diverse as well as leading writers and thinkers and explore issues related to our investment geographies and sectors.
Following training in New York, each Fellow is assigned to a specific investment to support senior management in tackling critical business issues - market expansion, business plan refinement, supply chain improvements, or even leading a new business initiative. Over the ten months spent with an investee, Fellows learn and apply skills while enjoying an unusual level of responsibility within our portfolio organizations. Halfway through the year, Fellows reconvene at the Skoll Forum for Social Entrepreneurship to reconnect with each other and others in the field and at the end of these assignments, the Fellows return to New York City for a final three weeks to share experiences and lessons learned and to focus on their next steps.
Meet the Fellows
Click here to learn about who the Fellows are, hear about their work, and find out where they are headed next.
Class of 2007
Class of 2008
Class of 2009
Become a Fellow
Cick here to find out more about the program, and to learn more about our application process. Applications open every fall for the class that begins training the following year.