Director of Market Integration at Trees for the Future

THE ROLE

• TREES is seeking a dynamic, entrepreneurial leader to build and deploy our market integration strategy. This role bridges the gap between farm-level programming and viable market access, ensuring smallholder farmers have the information and resources needed to meet market demands (product / variety, quality, timing, and volume) for high-margin agricultural products while advancing long-term land restoration outcomes. The Director will help identify and navigate tradeoffs between commercial opportunity and environmental objectives, ensuring both farmer prosperity and landscape regeneration remain central to program design. Beyond setting strategy, the Director will guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of market integration partnerships across all of our programs.
• We partner with over 30,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, delivering extension services, inputs, and financing through our network of last mile project officers. As we expand our impact, we are integrating market mechanisms to ensure farmers not only grow sustainably but thrive economically. The ideal candidate brings private sector experience aligning commercial agricultural opportunities with the needs and perspectives of smallholder farming communities, a track record of developing market access partnerships in multiple value chains, financial acumen, and an existing network within East African agricultural markets.
• This is a full-time, individual contributor role reporting to the Technical Director, Programs Department, and partnering closely with peers in each country. Frequent regional travel is required, and existing permanent work authorization in one of Kenya, Tanzania, or Uganda is required.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategy & Pilot Development

• Assess our current programs, including farmer engagement models, types of farmers, existing market touch points, and long-term aims of farmers and the organization vis-a-vis our carbon financing program, and develop a fit-for-purpose strategic approach to market integration.
• Evaluate the implications of market integration opportunities on both farmer profitability and restoration outcomes, and recommend approaches that optimize long-term value across both objectives.
• Design and lead TREES’ market integration roadmap across East Africa, in coordination with country program teams and technical advisors, to ensure integration with country-level programmatic approach, on-the-ground reality, and farmer and market readiness.
• Identify and prioritize market intervention entry points (i.e. financing, inputs access, offtake aggregation, transport, cold chain, branding), and develop and execute rapid pilots to get to proof of concept (or disprove concepts).
• Collaborate with in-country Markets and Value Chain staff, Country Directors, Field Program Leads, research and evaluation staff, and other relevant teams to embed market thinking into core programming; pilot and evaluate new ideas and solutions, and identify high-potential options to scale up.

Farmer Economics & Financial Leadership

• Develop tools and analyses (e.g. simplified farmer-level P&L models and organizational-level business propositions) that assess both farm enterprise performance and restoration impacts to support strategic investment and program decisions.
• Support the design of bundled financial products (e.g. input financing, insurance, forward contracts) to facilitate end market access.
• Analyze deal structures, leverage regular farmer input and feedback, and negotiate contracts with buyers, processors, and service providers as a trusted partner to farmers.

Partnerships & Ecosystem Engagement

• Build strategic partnerships with cooperatives, exporters, agri-tech firms, and buyers.
• Engage with private sector actors to co-create structural market access approaches.
• Represent TREES in value chain forums, trade associations, and other relevant industry networks.

Data & Market Intelligence

• Identify, create, or otherwise activate market data collection systems to ensure TREES and the farmers we serve understand demand, price points, volume requirements, and quality standards to inform agricultural programming.
• Integrate market and restoration performance data to inform recommendations on crops, production systems, and market opportunities.
• Work closely with training and agricultural extension teams to ensure market intelligence is adequately translated and disseminated to farmers, and that extension staff have the information and know-how to support farm-level decision-making in line with market requirements.

WHO YOU ARE

• An enthusiastic advocate for TREES’ mission and values. You are inspired to work alongside farming families building vibrant regional economies, thriving food systems, and a healthier planet. You thrive on a close-knit team that values shared integrity, inclusive collaboration, sustainable resilience, and continuous learning.
• A commercially seasoned agribusiness professional. You understand how buyers, processors, exporters, and service providers actually make decisions, and you know how to make a case that holds up on both sides of a deal.
• A connector who puts farmers at the center. You carry an existing network of relevant agribusiness actors in the region and negotiate as a trusted partner to farmers, grounding every deal in their input, feedback, and long-term interest.
• Financially fluent and comfortable with numbers. You can build a simple farmer-level model and a credible organizational business proposition and use both to make a clear recommendation.
• A strategist who balances prosperity with restoration. You can hold two objectives at once, demonstrating the ability to balance farmer profitability with land restoration goals and to make sound, transparent recommendations where tradeoffs exist. You look for the approaches that create long-term value across both.
• An entrepreneurial builder who learns by testing. You combine strategic thinking with detailed orientation to connect strategy to on-the-ground implementation. You design rapid pilots, get proof of concept quickly, and are equally willing to disprove an idea and move on.
• A strong communicator and relationship builder. You are a natural collaborator with the ability to lead through influence across diverse teams, geographies, and cultures. You have a warm, energetic, and authentic personality that translates to lasting relationships with farmers, colleagues, and commercial partners alike.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

Required

• 8+ years of experience in private sector engagement within key agricultural value chains in East Africa.
• Demonstrated combination of strategic thinking, the ability to drive change at a program level, and detail orientation to connect strategies to on-the-ground implementation.
• Proven track record in connecting smallholder farmers to durable market opportunities, and an existing network of relevant agribusiness actors in the region.
• Commercial financial skills: P&L modeling exposure, deal structuring, and contract negotiation.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and partnership-building skills; a natural collaborator and communicator with the ability to lead with influence across diverse teams and cultures.

Preferred

• Demonstrated ability to balance farmer profitability with land restoration objectives and make sound recommendations where tradeoffs exist.
• Experience with agricultural product differentiation and certifications, i.e., regenerative agriculture, organic certification, or carbon neutral claims.
• Exposure to digital traceability or agri-tech platforms.
• MBA, Master’s in Agribusiness, Economics, or a related field.