Director of Expansion at Komaza

What you will do

• Develop Komaza’s short- and long-term expansion strategy, working closely with Komaza’s Founder/CEO and Field Operations Director to define the key factors and processes for selecting and launching a new site.
• For 2017/18 expansion into Kwale, you will be primarily based in Kwale County in order to establish that site office, where you will be responsible for directly managing the entire team, with a primary focus on Field Operations, but also managing all local support staff (i.e. a few administrative staff to support finance, HR, etc.).
• Design, recruit and manage an effective, efficient, and innovative Expansion Department that can deliver on these ambitious growth targets, with a particular focus on hiring and grooming the next-generation of Expansion Leads to relocate to new sites.
• Lead the design and optimization of our program model, strategies and operational tools to align our core business model with the specific context of new communities and environments.
• Coordinate with other company Directors to plan how their departments (Field Ops, Finance, HR, Admin, IT, etc.) can support first-year expansion operations and subsequently expand their geographic scope to successfully take over long-term management of newly established sites.
• Develop and deliver strategies to ensure that Komaza’s core values are effectively embraced at new sites, and that everyone feels part of “one Komaza”, while at the same time ensuring each site thrives with their unique and complementary identity as appropriate.
• Work with other members of Komaza’s senior management team to further define and model our innovative, results-oriented, values-driven company culture, and

What you have

• Bachelor’s + relevant graduate degree from top global universities (or equivalent work experience).
• 5+ years of work experience at reputable companies in a relevant field of work (e.g. operations management in East Africa or similar), with 2+ years in a senior management role.
• Excellent critical/analytical/systems-thinking skills to design and optimize complex operations.
• Excellent verbal & written communication skills to translate chaos and complexity into clarity.
• Strong innovation skills to troubleshoot bottlenecks and design continuous improvements.
• Experience with core business support functions, including basic HR, Finance, Procurement, IT, etc.
• Experience designing & building robust management systems to effectively hand specific workstreams to mid-level managers.
• Ability to retain big-picture strategic awareness while diving deep into details, and providing coaching to help others focus on key factors, rather than getting lost in the weeds.

You’re also

• Comfortable with significant travel time, e.g. bouncing between Kilifi and Kwale Counties on Kenya’s Coast in 2017/18 (3-4 hour drive), followed by monthly trips to new regions thereafter.
• Self-directed, intellectually curious, and comfortable working through ambiguity by creating logical frameworks and taking educated guesses to fill in the gaps.
• Laser-focused on delivering successful outcomes, and sufficiently flexible, scrappy, and driven to do whatever necessary to get the job done.
• Highly collaborative & skilled at soliciting efficient input from teammates and stakeholders.
• Passionate about Komaza’s mission and vision -- to lift rural farmers out of poverty by rapid scaling of our disruptive micro-forestry business model.