Senior Associate, Standards & Associate at Rainforest Alliance

Position summary:
The Rainforest Alliance is looking for a proactive and strategic Senior Associate, Standards and Assurance (S&A), East Africa to coordinate with and report to the Senior Manager, S&A Africa to work on the assurance and quality challenges in East and possibly Southern Africa and address risk issues.

Working in close collaboration with the Regional Directors East and Southern Africa and relevant country teams, Customer Success and other S&A staff, the S&A Senior Associate will work to improve specific issues related to the implementation and auditing of the Rainforest Alliance 2020 Certification Program by Certificate Holders (CHs) and Certificate Bodies (CBs).

The S&A Senior Associate will lead on and implement the operational activities of the Global S&A department for East Africa, helping to ensure the credibility and functioning of the Standard and Assurance system activities. The S&A Senior Associate will lead in the license review process, training of CBs and regional staff and Associated Trainer Networks (ATNs) on the 2020 RA Standard and conducts country risk assessments on the main production and auditing contexts.

Responsibilities: 
The Rainforest Alliance’s Core Values are Impact, Change, Collaboration, Openness and Trust and as such they form the basis of the behaviours we demonstrate.

1. Proactively supports, answers questions, gives information and advice - via e-mail, phone and other – to the Leadership Team, department heads, RA colleagues, CBs and CHs on the RA Standards and implementation of the Certification Rules;
2. Implements a monitoring program on RA certification which includes license reviews, interpreting audit results, leading on credibility cases and compliance, solves problems and/or makes recommendations if necessary to the relevant management;
3. Initiate and organize the development and implementation of the annual plan together with the Senior Manager Africa, for the assigned countries and coordinate the annual plan with the broader regional/country plans to capture synergies;
4. Accountable for the implementation and execution of the Standards & Assurance East & Southern Africa annual plan and activities within East & Southern Africa, including observing audits;
5. Contribute to country risk assessments and use this information to design and implement Quality of Implementation activities for the region. Manage reputational risks in coordination with S&A senior management and regional management;
6. Maintain an analysis for S&A management of the regional activities, including audits, non-conformities, quality of a sample of audit reports and licenses to evaluate the interpretations for the Standard and certification rules, information about selling/purchasing certified volumes along supply chain and makes recommendations for improvements;
7. Build and maintain networks with colleagues in countries of oversight, providing input and contributions to country-specific projects where S&A is part of to prevent re-occurrence of credibility issues in the region;
8. Organizes, develops and provides workshops, trainings and/or webinars based on training needs assessments and other inputs to CBs and other stakeholders (internal and external) as needed;
9. Develops, updates, distributes and implements certification processes/procedures, and relevant tools/materials for the region, target group and/or product; and
10. Works together with member monitoring and field teams to identify the need for standard contextualization, policy, and guidance. Identifies assurance risks and passes this onto the CB Monitoring team and S&A management.

Qualifications: 

1. Master’s Degree in agronomy/rural development/sociology/environmental science/forestry;
2. Minimum 5 years’ experience in sustainable agriculture certification and tea supply chains or equivalent. Other commodities such as coffee, cocoa, flowers and fruits is preferred; 
3. Proficient in Microsoft Excel, Word, and Outlook with a demonstrated experience in accounting software and working knowledge of PowerPoint;
4. Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal; 
5. Ability to form and maintain collaborative networks both internally and externally;
6. Strategic mindset, able to identify trends, respond to challenges before they become issues, and provide insights into broader strategies and workplans;
7. Able to work independently;
8. Fluency verbal and written communication skills in English is required. Swahili and any other language spoken in the region is preferred;
9. Demonstrated commitment to the RA mission and values; and
10. Ability to travel a minimum of 30% per year in the region and/or internationally.