Digitisation & Farmer Visibility Manager at Heifer International

The Role

Reporting to Heifer Kenya Country Director, the position holder will be responsible for the day-to-day management and smooth operation of various digital projects as well as lead integration of technology and innovations initiatives across Heifer Kenya programmatic interventions. As an established project management professional, you will have the skills to influence at every level of the organization including collaborating with internal and external teams to design, develop and implement digital projects. Additionally, the position holder will work closely with the communications and program teams as the driving force behind heifer Kenya’s alternative and transformative business delivery and extension support models targeting various agricultural value chains.

 The Person

We are seeking for a master’s degree or equivalent holder in the fields of Agriculture Economics, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship, Enterprise Development, or other related fields, with Ten (10) years in a mix of economic growth/trade, value chain competitiveness, investment promotion, or agriculture development with a minimum of five (5) years in management level work experience. You will need to bring significant experience in building public/private partnerships, preferably in the agriculture sector, experience in conducting business, investment analyses, and capital budgeting and sufficient evidence on how the results were used to develop potentially viable business ideas and subsequently tangible businesses. Proven experience in building the capacity of partner institutions, managing knowledge, measuring progress, and planning and innovating within the agriculture industry is also a requisite for the role as well as track record of leading successful digital transformation projects in the agricultural sector as well as demonstrated experience in project management including in donor project budgets management, proposal development and monitoring and evaluation, project reporting and donor reporting experience.

 RESPONSIBILIIES AND DELIVERABLES:

 Digital Strategy Lead & Transformation

• Lead the conceptualisation of Heifer Kenya digital program implementation strategy as well as the supportive platforms to support digital agricultural transformation programs.
•  Lead the gathering of consumer insights to advise the business on the possible propositions that will address the needs and oversee the development of the end user solution-oriented strategy and resultant products.
• Manage the integration of envisioned digital interventions into the strategic-planning process for leadership commitment, resource mobilisation and allocation.
• Oversee the roll out and implementation of the innovative technology products, aiming at better-informed country planning through analytics; systems transformation; and transformative digital agriculture ecosystems.
• Coordinate workstreams from teams and partners across different value chains to generate innovative solutions targeting products, services, processes, customer experiences and alternative agricultural extension models.
• Partner with private sector digital solution providers to develop products to be deployed targeting smallholder farmers and producer organisations including managing the product development cycle
• In concert with the heifer leadership & communications teams, lead the rollout and dissemination of applicable technology interventions across multiple stakeholders whilst securing buy-in into the envisioned transformations.
• Drive the adoption, usage and scale up of technology solutions and innovations that focus on access to finance, information, and market access for end users.
• Develop tools and materials for learning facilitation and scale up of the Farmer Visibility Project and digital innovations and their implementation.
• Build, manage and continually grow an internal and external digital innovation pipeline of products supporting the agricultural ecosystem.

 Project Management

• Provide end-to-end project management by assuming overall responsibility for the management of the project resources ensuring adherence to the compliance and accountability policies
• Facilitate establishment of project management structures including at the field level
• Develop support documentation including risk logs, monitoring, and reporting
• Communicate with the team and ensure all members are on board with delegated tasks
• Highlight potential risks and act proactively to resolve issues
• Manage the performance of employees and implementation partners engaged in the execution of the project
• Profile and develop a data based of all the potential resource persons in the project area that the project can utilize to provide specialized trainings once need arises 
• Develop and implement sustainability plans for the project
• Develop and support monitoring and evaluation on the assessment of impact of adoption of digital technologies towards the desired living income.
• Analyses relevant data and/or statistics for input into reporting to various stakeholders on the digital strategy and resultant projects.
• Support Heifer Kenya on the adoption and implementation of digital strategies and tools supportive of the existing MELs framework.
• Compile the monthly, Quarterly, and annual project progress reports and submit them on schedule
• Compile the donor reports as requested by the donor through and submit them on schedule and in the recommended formats
• Compile and submit a monthly business analysis report for each of producer organization supported by the project/ adopting digital innovations and making recommendations to address any issues noted

 Planning and budgeting

• Develop an overall project operational plan aligned to the project log frame that will guide both the Farmer Visibility Project and digital innovations implementation.
• Development and implementation of project work plans (monthly, quarterly) that are aligned to the project log frame
• Develop monthly and quarterly budgets aligned to the project work plan and manage the spending as per the budgets
• Review the Monthly and Quarterly Budget Monitoring reports and provide reports on the status of the project spending
• On a quarterly basis, develop project procurement plans and submit them to the procurement team

 ESSENTIAL COMPETENCIES:

• Extent and relevance of experience in digital agriculture, addressing for example: advisory services, market linkages, financial services, data management, use of geospatial technologies, blockchain, artificial intelligence, drone use in agriculture, etc.
• Experience with management of online interactions is considered an asset.
• Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field-based operations is desirable.

 QUALIFICATION AND SKILLS

• Proven 10 years’ experience, 5 of which will be in managing projects in a mix of economic growth/trade, value chain competitiveness, investment promotion, or agriculture development.
• Significant experience in building public/private partnerships, preferably in the agriculture sector.
• Proven track record of leading successful digital transformation projects in the agricultural sector
• Demonstrated project and donor reporting experience.
• Comfortable learning new technologies including project management systems
• Excellent influence skills, active listening, negotiation, and presentation skills
• Competence to build and effectively manage interpersonal relationships at all levels of the organization