Manager, Supply Chain and Project M&E, Data Management and Intelligence at Rainforest Alliance

Position summary:

The Rainforest Alliance leads a global Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) project focusing on the coffee sector with one of our long-term strategic private sector partners. This project works to accelerate our partner’s regenerative transition and support producers within their coffee supply chain to become more efficient, resilient and prosperous at scale. This includes in-depth, science-backed impact monitoring and evaluation for adaptive management across over 15 countries. By elevating the current M&E system to excel in operational execution, breadth and speed, and providing actionable data-driven insights on interventions and their impact, we support our partner in accelerating the progress of their regenerative transitions, achieving sustainability targets and steering further investments.

As a result, we are looking for a manager with strong project management skills and M&E technical expertise to lead and implement M&E projects in global coffee supply chains to support our partner in improving their supply chain sustainability performance. This individual will lead a global team of M&E field staff implementing M&E project design, data collection, analysis, results dissemination, and communication with our partner.

This role will be reporting to the Senior Supply Chain Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and will work closely with the project team, Rainforest Alliance departments and thematic experts, and staff in the countries of implementation.

The ideal candidate is a self-motivated, autonomous, results-oriented, proactive strategic planner with meticulous attention to detail.

Responsibilities:

PROJECT AND TEAM MANAGEMENT

• Supervise and handle all aspects of the supply chain monitoring and evaluation coffee project, including planning, execution, data analysis, quality assurance, and stakeholder coordination, ensuring alignment with objectives and timelines.
• Lead the development and implementation of detailed team work plans, ensuring alignment with project goals and timelines. Proactively identify and address project management needs to maintain smooth operations and mitigate potential risks.
• Lead a global team of (minimum) five members across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, ensuring effective coordination of M&E field data collection campaigns in 15+ countries; coordination scope includes 3rd party enumerators training, data quality assurance, data analysis, and preparation of comprehensive M&E reports;
• Assess current team capacities and prepare capacity building plan to strengthen team members' skills;
• Ensure coordination internally with other RA teams (i.e. data teams, thematic experts, field/regional teams, finance) and external consultants for the execution of the project, ensuring timely deliveries of the project M&E component;
• Maintain relationships with company partner, M&E service providers and other key stakeholders;
• Lead all aspects of budget planning and execution to ensure financial accountability and the efficient allocation of resources.

M&E EXPERTISE

• Design, review and advise on M&E systems and indicators;
• Lead all aspects of regenerative agriculture, carbon emissions, and farm economics analysis review with RA thematic experts;
• Coordinate the contextualisation of M&E findings with insight and experience from coffee and other sectors, using relevant secondary data (research publications, international and/or national statistics data, etc.) and field observation;
• Coordinate the dissemination and communication of M&E results and key findings to company partners and RA internal teams, including addressing feedback;
• Ensure delivery of globally consistent high-quality work in a timely manner. This includes ensuring the implementation of best practices in data collection and in the review and analysis of M&E data;

Qualifications:

• Advanced degree or equivalent in agriculture, forestry, natural resources, environmental management, or related field;
• Demonstrated ability (5 years’) in related field and M&E, including at least 3 years’ experience with private sector sustainability activities in the coffee sector;
• Very strong strategic planning and organisational skills to handle multiple priorities in a time-sensitive manner, anticipate challenges, and put in place pre-emptive measures;
• Experience in leading multicultural – global teams remotely;
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to interact culturally, linguistically, and diplomatically with diverse internal and external individuals;
• Excellent English writing, editing and verbal communication skills; Spanish and/or French would be a plus;
• Strong ability to work remotely with minimal supervision;
• Travel Requirements: Ability to travel a minimum of 15-20 % per year, internationally;
• Experience working for companies as a service provider would be a plus;
• Working knowledge of statistics and data analytics, experience with statistical packages (Stata, SPSS, R, etc.) and data visualization software (Power BI, etc.) a plus.