Jobs at Crown Agents Ltd

Process for joining the roster

• The process for joining the roster involves a couple of informal interviews/discussions with the CES team, including the Director for Climate Energy and Sustainability, and other members of the global leadership team.
• Agreement on broad terms and conditions and fee rate (specific fee rates may vary according to the client).
• A due diligence process.

About you

Key exerience and knowledge needed:

1. Experience advising, supporting, building capacity of government institutions on key climate challenges.
2. Business development skills – developing context-specific products and services and influencing government clients and private funders to engage in those solutions.
3. Specialist knowledge of climate energy and sustainability challenges facing developing countries in relation to some of the following areas: off-grid renewable energy for public institutions;  Nature based solutions; carbon markets; reforestation; NDCs; waste management; water and sanitation;  agro-processing; agriculture and food security; the health-climate nexus; climate finance; green procurement and supply chains; carbon reduction planning; climate diplomacy. 
4. Experience working in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, Caribbean.
5. A core level of computer literacy: report writing, presentation development, numerical analysis and data management is assumed.

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Function of Department

• An incubator for senior-level client relationships; placing business development at the heart of Country and regional strategy.
• To deliver high quality impactful programmes that support development progress in Kenya and East Africa and meet the needs of Crown Agents’ clients.
• To operate as a well-run functional operational platform for Crown Agents in Kenya, employing and investing in talented people who will contribute to CA’s global business.

Main Job Purpose

• To provide overall leadership to the CA Kenya office, achieving ambitious growth targets through business development.
• To engage proactively and effectively with clients and other key external stakeholders in the Government of Kenya, international donor organisations and in the private sector to promote CA’s business and generate high quality market intelligence for growth. 
• To be a key senior member of the Supply Chain Cluster and propose, negotiate and sell Procurement, Inspections and logistics project solutions to address donors and governments’ development agendas in Kenya and East Africa
• To provide strategic direction and effective oversight to the CA Kenya team
• To work in partnership with colleagues across the global business to identify and secure profitable new business opportunities in the country, contributing to the company’s overall growth targets.

Main Job Responsibilities

Business Winning

• Identify and secure new growth opportunities to build a stronger and more sustainable portfolio of contracts and programmes for CA in Kenya and across East Africa, particularly in the areas of Procurement, Inspections and Freight/logistics.
• Expand and fully utilise existing contracts to maximise the financial contribution of programmes to CA’s overall business performance.
• Seek new and develop appropriate partners and consortia to further strengthen CA Kenya’s market offering.
• Understand and develop access and trust with important and influential customer contacts.
• Exceed ambitious growth targets by embedding a sales-oriented growth culture across your team.
• Adopt and implement a Key Account Management approach to nurture and grow existing clients.
• Maintain and grow a senior-level network (C-suite executives, cabinet and principal secretaries and leaders within donor organisations), and broker new opportunities within this network.

About you

Requirements  

Qualification

• Relevant university degree required; Master's degree in related field preferred

Experience

• Typically, we require a minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible experience in a senior manager role. Previous experience as a Country Director is desirable.  A demonstrable career focus on results through business development is a must.
• Track record of winning large contracts, particularly in the development arena
•  A strong track record of securing business growth and establishing new and effective partnerships with clients
• Strong interpersonal and soft skills such as delegation, communication, trustworthiness, empathy, team-working, leadership, listening and coaching.  
• Being able to demonstrate emotional intelligence in leadership and management. 
• Experience in winning large supply chain-oriented projects is desirable
• Previous experience in managing a diverse team in a resource-limited setting.
• Attention to detail and ability to effectively perform multiple tasks and balance competing priorities often within a defined timelines
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain relationships with senior-level stakeholders, particularly interacting productively, proactively, and comfortably with government directly and govt agencies, NGOs, private sector groups, FCDO and donor organizations.
• Demonstrated strategic agility, diplomacy, conflict management, team building, written and oral communication, and negotiation skills.
• Considerable experience in working with host country governments, NGOs and private sector to move the programmes forward
• Familiarity with public procurement, tendering for public contracts and contract management, preferably in the supply chain context.
• Demonstrated strategic planning skills.
• Ability to travel as required to support the progress of programme activities.
• Demonstrated experience and knowledge of working for international organisations.

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About the role

At Crown Agents we are in the process of updating our Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) consultant database and would particularly like to encourage those meeting the following criteria to apply.

About you

• both national and international consultants
• at least five years of MEL experience working within health, conflict response and recovery, governance, procurement, or supply chains
• experience working within the following countries is desirable: Ukraine, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Nepal
• fluency in French and other languages is desirable .

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MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE JOB

Manage:

• Manage the full lifecycle of complex programmes and bids within time, scope and budget to a high quality, specifically the FCDO Funded Health Pooled Fund programme
• Performance manages other PMO team members as appropriate
• Manage your own time utilisation, ensuring that billable days are allocated to programmes and overhead time is within pre-agreed targets.
• Provide management and leadership to project teams as per the project organisation”

 Deliver:

Directly manage and support programmes to a high standard ensuring:

• Contracted financial target is met or exceeded.
• Deliverables are produced on time and to the highest quality. This will include coordinating inputs of the programme team to meet key stakeholder requirements.
• Provide timely status reporting, including monthly RAG and quarterly Contract Review Reports updated on time to a high-quality standard
• Ensure internal workplans and agreed action plans are followed by programme teams, including consortium partners when relevant.
• Ensure corporate compliance requirements are followed on programmes, this will include safeguarding and security.
• Ensure strong risk management on all programmes, risks are mitigated and escalated as needed.
• Strong internal and external communication is supported, including regular minute taking where appropriate.
• Effective dissemination of cross-organisational learning(s) regarding project delivery
• The mobilisation of long and short-term programme team members is supported.
• Excellent relations with stakeholders are maintained and liaise with client, partner and other relevant individuals and organisations as required.
• Management visits to programme countries are undertaken as and when required.
• Target for billable days are achieved against forecast.
• Payment for suppliers and contractors are arranged with the programme accountant.
• The programme accountant is supported to arrange timely invoices, financial reports, forecasts and cashflow projections for internal monitoring purposes and for the client in line with contractual terms.
• Partner expenditure is monitored against budgets, ensuring invoicing is on time and in line with agreed reporting.
• Appropriate monitoring and lesson learning mechanisms are put in place
• Any post-contract issues are resolved and documented as appropriate.

Win:

• Manage bids as you would a project, ensuring targets are met, finances are managed and reported on, deadlines are adhered to, and the quality of deliverables remains high.
• When bid managing, lead the bid process from pre-EOI stage through to commercial negotiations on top priority proposals.
• When bid managing, ensure the bid team meet deadlines, holding team members at all levels accountable to agreed deliverables.
• Identify opportunities to ‘build-out’ from live programmes you manage.

Build:

• Share and enable learnings from programmes and bids to be embedded into corporate processes and future delivery and winning opportunities.
• Share your knowledge of best practice programme delivery with others in the company, providing advice and guidance as needed

About you

Requirements

Qualifications

• Degree level or equivalent working experience.

Experience

• Demonstrable experience working in complex and time-pressured contexts
• Demonstrable experience managing or coordinating multi-stakeholder programmes in developing countries
• Experience using Microsoft applications
• Ability to prioritise competing demands and creatively problem solve
• Experience coordinating input from consortium partners and senior management
• Experience in managing budgets for effective delivery; closely monitoring cashflow and ensuring strong forecasting and reporting to clients.
• Experience in communications with clients, consortium partners and other programme stakeholders.Demonstrable experience of leading and managing teams, driving innovation, value for money and project management excellence