Terms of Reference for Recruitment of a Firm to Design and Implement the Psf Business Growth, Mentorship and Excellence Pilot Program

TERMS OF REFERENCE

RECRUITMENT OF A FIRM TO DESIGN AND IMPLEMENT THE PSF BUSINESS GROWTH, MENTORSHIP AND EXCELLENCE PILOT PROGRAM

1. Background

The Private Sector Federation (PSF) is the apex body representing the interests of the private sector in Rwanda. As part of its strategic commitment to fostering competitive, resilient, and globally competitive enterprises, PSF continues to promote initiatives that strengthen enterprise development, innovation, and private sector growth.

Various companies across PSF’s Agriculture, Industry, Trade, Services, and Specialized Clusters contribute significantly to Rwanda’s economic growth, employment creation, and innovation. However, many businesses continue to face challenges related to business growth, leadership and management capacity, governance, access to finance and access to markets, innovation, productivity, financial management, digital transformation, and long-term sustainability. These challenges often limit their ability to compete, growth, expand, and respond to changing market opportunities.

Recognizing these challenges, PSF seeks to establish a structured Business Growth, Mentorship and Excellence Program that combines enterprise diagnostics, mentorship, executive coaching, peer learning, networking, business excellence practices, and practical capacity-building interventions. The program is intended to support participating enterprises in strengthening their business performance, leadership, innovation, competitiveness, and long-term sustainability, hence become investment ready.

As an initial phase, the program will be implemented as a pilot across selected sectors within PSF’s five clusters. The pilot will provide an opportunity to validate the program model, assess its effectiveness, generate lessons learned, and refine implementation approaches before scaling the initiative nationally.

The pilot will cover:

• Agriculture Cluster (2 sectors)
• Industry Cluster (2 sectors)
• Trade Cluster (2 sectors)
• Services Cluster (2 sectors)
• Specialized Cluster (Women Entrepreneurs, Youth Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs with Disabilities)

The assignment therefore seeks to recruit a qualified consulting firm to design, develop and implement the pilot program.

2. Objective

Overall Objective

To design and implement a Business Growth, Mentorship and Excellence Pilot Program that strengthens the performance, leadership capacity, innovation, competitiveness, and long-term sustainability of selected enterprises across PSF’s five clusters.

Specific Objectives

The consulting firm shall be responsible for achieving the following objectives:

• Conduct Sector needs assessment
• Design a comprehensive mentorship and business growth framework.
• Develop all operational tools and implementation manuals.
• Identify and profile participating enterprises.
• Recruit and onboard qualified mentors.
• Match mentors with mentees.
• Deliver mentorship and coaching sessions.
• Facilitate business excellence workshops.
• Monitor business performance improvements.
• Document lessons learned and recommendations for national rollout.
• Strengthen the managerial, leadership, and technical capacities of participating enterprises to improve business performance and competitiveness.
• Generate evidence, lessons learned, and recommendations to inform the refinement and national scale-up of the Business Growth, Mentorship and Excellence Program.

3. Scope of Work

The consulting firm shall undertake, but not be limited to, the following activities.

Phase I: Inception

• Hold inception meetings with PSF.
• Review relevant strategic documents.
• Develop an inception report.
• Prepare a detailed implementation roadmap.
• Identify potential implementation risks (including mentor attrition, low enterprise engagement, and scheduling constraints) and propose corresponding mitigation measures.

Phase II: Program Design

Under this assignment, the consulting firm is expected to develop amongst others the program framework, business growth model, mentorship framework, excellence framework, governance structure, selection criteria, code of ethics, mentor handbook, mentee handbook, implementation manual, monitoring and evaluation framework, communication plan, branding guidelines, digital tracking templates, etc.

Phase III: Pilot Selection

Support PSF in selecting a minimum of 50 enterprises from these clusters: agriculture, industry, trade, services and specialized cluster (women entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs with disabilities. Both small, medium and large.

N.B: Where applicable, enterprises led by women, youth or persons with disabilities within the Agriculture, Industry, Trade and Services Cluster may also be considered under the specialized Cluster’s inclusion targets.

Phase IV: Recruitment of Mentors

The firm shall:

• Develop mentor selection criteria.
• Identify experienced business leaders.
• Interview mentors.
• Train mentors.
• Certify mentors.
• Match mentors with mentees.

Mentors may include:

• Chairman, CEOs and other executives
• Successful entrepreneurs
• Investors
• Industry experts
• Export specialists
• Financial experts
• Governance experts
• Etc.

Phase V: Program Implementation

The firm shall deliver:

Business Diagnostics

Conduct enterprise assessments covering:

• Business growth
• Leadership and governance
• Finance and books of accounts
• Sales and marketing
• Innovation, R&D
• Export readiness
• Product development and level of production
• Usage of IT and digital transformation
• Human resource and human capital
• ESG
• Etc.

Individual and enterprise mentorship

Each enterprise shall receive:

• One-on-one mentorship
• Senior management mentorship
• Executive coaching
• Training
• Target setting and action planning
• Performance reviews
• Etc.

Each participating enterprise shall receive a minimum of one mentorship session per week over the course of the pilot implementation period, complemented by structured check-ins to track progress against agreed action plans.

Group Learning

Organize workshops on:

• Business growth and strategy
• Financial and fund management
• Book accounting and taxation
• Corporate governance and leadership
• Branding and marketing
• Market expansion and export
• Innovation and research
• Digitalization
• Investment and long term planning
• Succession Planning
• Etc.

Networking

Facilitate the following:

• Executive roundtables
• Peer learning forums
• Business networking sessions
• Investor engagement sessions, etc.

Excellence Journey

Develop business excellence assessments based on internationally recognized frameworks.

Support participating enterprises in continuous improvement, business excellence culture, quality management, innovation management, etc.

Communication and Visibility

Implement the approved communication plan and apply branding guidelines throughout the pilot, ensuring consistent visibility and stakeholder awareness of program activities.

Phase VI: Monitoring and Eevaluation

Develop and implement:

• Baseline assessment to be conducted before the piloting phase;
• Mid-term assessment
• End-line assessment
• Enterprise scorecards
• KPI dashboards
• Success stories
• Challenges and Lessons learned
• Etc.

Phase VII: Sustainability Strategy

Prepare a roadmap for scaling the program nationwide, including options for institutionalization within PSF, resource mobilization, and a financial sustainability model to support long-term implementation.

4. Deliverables

The consulting firm shall submit:

• Inception Report
• Selection guidelines and baseline report
• Program design and training materials
• Governance structure and code of ethics
• Mentorship and mentee handbook
• Implementation plan and M&E framework
• Enterprise scorecards and KPI dashboards
• Final Pilot Report (incorporating success stories and lessons learned)
• National roll-out and sustainability strategy
• Final Assignment Report

5. Methodology

The consulting firm will propose an appropriate methodology that would best suit the assignment within the tentative planned period following the validation of the Inception report. Proposals will be evaluated on the clarity, relevance, portfolio (demonstrated examples of previous work), and feasibility of the proposed approach. The consultant/consulting firm will ensure that the principle of inclusion, transparency, and participatory people centered process/methods at the core of the review process and final report.

6. Duration

The assignment is expected to be completed within 8 months according to the following indicative timeline:

7. Required qualifications of the firm

The consulting firm should:

• Be legally registered.
• Have at least 5 years of training, coaching, mentorship and consulting experience.
• Have established continuous support and resources that go beyond the mentorship program
• Demonstrate experience in customizing training contents to meet specific needs of different clusters and business associations
• Demonstrate experience in SME development and entrepreneurship.
• Have proven expertise in mentorship program design and implementation and holistic approach to entrepreneurship.
• Have successfully completed at least three similar assignments.
• Demonstrate experience in business excellence and organizational development.
• Have experience working with business associations, chambers of commerce or private sector institutions.
• Have a dedicated in-house training venue with an established customisable technological infrastructure is strongly desirable

8. Key Experts

The proposed team should include:

• Team Leader (Certified business development specialist)
• SME Development Expert
• Mentorship & leadership expert
• Organizational development specialist, Etc.

9. Evaluation Criteria

Technical Evaluation (80%)

Financial Evaluation (20%)

Lowest evaluated responsive proposal.

10. Reporting

The consulting firm shall report directly to the Director of Entrepreneurship and Business Development (or the designated Project Manager) at PSF. A Steering Committee shall provide oversight, review key deliverables, and approve major outputs.

Expected Outcomes

By the end of the assignment, PSF will have:

• Report of benefited growing companies.
• A fully tested and documented business growth, mentorship and excellence program.
• A pool of trained and certified mentors.
• Participating SMEs with measurable improvements in business performance, governance, innovation, and market readiness.
• A comprehensive implementation toolkit and monitoring framework.
• A validated roadmap for scaling the program across all PSF clusters and sectors nationwide.

This ToR is designed to support a competitive procurement process while providing a clear framework for delivering a high-impact pilot that can evolve into PSF’s flagship enterprise development initiative.

Proposals (technical and financial) should be sent to PSF ([email protected]) not later than Tuesday 25^th August 2026 at 5 pm.