Agribusiness Team Lead at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)

The Company

The Government of Kenya has adopted four priority areas to spur economic growth, create employment and transform the livelihoods of the citizens over a five-year period up to 2022. The four development priorities christened as the Big Four Agenda are Food Security, Manufacturing, Universal Healthcare and Affordable Housing especially for the Urban Poor.
Our Client is a government department that intends to play a key role in the implementation of the Big Four Agenda through direct interventions in the priority areas as well as leveraging its mandate to facilitate and enable state and non-state actors to achieve these priorities. To position themselves for this critical role, Our Client is currently prioritizing and streamlining their activities and programs in the following areas:

• Manufacturing: Commercially produce cotton to contribute towards increased local production for garment and other forms of cotton-based manufacturing and expand capacity in textile and apparels production.
• Food Security and Nutrition: Invest in large-scale farming of such crops as Rice, Maize, Sugarcane, Grapes etc. This will contribute towards eliminating the existing national production deficits for these crops and increase food security and nutrition.
• Solid Waste Management and Recycling: Explore solid waste management and recycling through a partnership with select County Governments in waste management and recycling.
• Renewable Energy: Contribute to harvesting solar energy to supplement the national grid through development of a solar power park through Public Private Partnership arrangements.

To support the above programs, Our Client wishes to recruit a Agribusiness Team Lead:

Roles & Responsibilities

Job purpose and responsibilities:

Team Lead Agribusiness will be a technical expert playing a direct role in increased agricultural productivity, and will be responsible for all activities related to the strengthening and expansion of agribusiness activities in the five key value chains identified (Rice, Maize, Cotton, Sugarcane and Grapes)

Key responsibilities:

• Develop Stakeholder partnership framework for developing agri-business investments to promote the agricultural value chains;
• Design a clear strategy for attracting agri-business investments to ensure that adequate level and balance of private and public investments are in place to drive the establishment of agribusiness activities;
• Conduct a situational analysis with a focus of identifying opportunities and risks, and draw lessons from past government agribusiness initiatives;
• Advise on stakeholder identification and develop strategies that defines Our Client’s roles and that of partners in agribusiness sector.
• Lead the development of sustainable agribusiness and trade strategies that identify key local and regional market opportunities for Our Client to achieve their commercialization agenda.
• Provide overall technical support in a wide variety of areas, including value chain development and upgrading strategies, improving access to agricultural inputs, agricultural extension, marketing, and distribution.
• Facilitate market driven linkages between agribusiness producers, wholesalers, processors, markets and other stakeholders within Kenya.
• Take lead in the preparation of agribusiness value chain reviews, preparation of annual reports, dissemination of reports detailing the impact and results of activities.
• Contribute directly to strategic planning, performance monitoring and reporting of agribusiness activities, reviewing work plans and quarterly/annual reports, preparing monitoring reports;

Requirements

Key qualifications and experience:

• Master’s degree in agriculture, agribusiness, agricultural economics, or other related field from a recognised university.
• Minimum of (12) years of professional work experience in agribusiness development with an emphasis on at least two of the identified value chains. Experience working on similar government agricultural/agribusiness development programs, including contributing to M&E, reporting, and designing and leading program activities is desirable.
• Remarkable record of accomplishment in developing and executing strategies plans and initiatives on agriculture development/transformation with particular emphasis on agribusiness, agro-processing enhancement and food security that create employment and generate income.
• Experience leading and building the capacity of teams of agriculture-focused staff, including remote, field-based staff, to meet program needs and deliverables.
• Experience working and collaborating with diverse sets of stakeholders.
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills, including demonstrated advanced ICT skills.
• Demonstrable practical knowledge of the Kenyan agribusiness industry