Head of Partnerships at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

Position Summary

AGRA is engaged in developing and supporting a series of dynamic and innovative partnership agendas in line with its overall strategy.

The Head of Partnerships is responsible for providing leadership and direction in partnership building with the private sector, development banks and financial institutions and major implementing partners and for increasing AGRA’s influence and impact across Africa.  This will involve leading a team of experienced professionals to drive a series of cross sector partnerships and business development objectives to achieve scalable outcomes. The role represents an exciting senior management opportunity to work with a strong team at the forefront of platform and partnership design in the creation of next generation inclusive business development and shared value thinking.

As part of the Management team the role holder will liaise with AGRA’s Executive and Senior Leadership, Donors, Government counterparts, Partners and other stakeholders and should be committed to delivering on targets, be agile and responsive to different stakeholders. The role holder should be entrepreneurial and open to innovative ideas and also able to draw and build on consultative inputs from other AGRA stakeholders where needed.

The role will interface closely with the country delivery teams and will play a critical role in supporting the delivery of the country business plans and also facilitating an active grant making and follow through process. The position will be based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead and manage AGRA’s Partnerships Unit to draw on AGRA’s expertise to develop and manage significant long-term partnerships with the private sector, development banks & financial institutions and major implementing partners that are necessary to sustaining agricultural transformation.
• Represent AGRA with broad stakeholders that include key partners, smallholder farmers, Donors, and international organizations.
• Lead identification and development of strategic partnerships with global organizations and translate them to managed programs with demonstrable benefits to the agricultural transformation agenda.
• Represent and promote AGRA’s interests in various specialist/sectoral, national, regional, and international forums and in conversations with government leaders and other influential stakeholders.
• Support AGRA’s Resource Mobilization efforts to drive Agriculture Transformation.
• Contribute to the development of AGRA’s knowledge management platform to enable AGRA to maintain and curate all it knows about the context, players, opportunities, and solutions to get value chains working in various agro-ecologies and countries, both to position AGRA at the leading edge of agricultural transformation and to inform readily respond to partnership opportunities.

Key Qualifications and Experience required

• Bachelor’s degree and an MBA or other advanced degrees in a relevant field like Business, Economics, Public Administration, Engineering, Sciences, or Planning;
• S/he will have had a career/experience spanning operational, strategic managerial and leadership of at least 12 years in in Partnerships and Strategy preferably in Africa, specifically in the areas of rural and agriculture finance, strategic planning and analysis, channel management and product development;
• Deep familiarity with how to structure commercial and social partnerships with leading private sector players, development banks and financial institutions and major implementing partners;
• Extensive experience in Relationship Management;
• Excellent oral, facilitation, and written communication skills;
• Experience managing multinational initiatives in the private and/or public sector;
• Proven ability to lead effective and high impact teams and partnerships;
• Proven leadership ability to influence, develop, and empower all stakeholders to achieve their best with a team approach;
• Results and detail orientated with a very hands-on approach;
• Intelligent, motivated self-starter with strong interpersonal skills and work ethic.
• Ability to travel up to 25% – 35% domestically and internationally to engage with AGRA teams and government units in AGRA’s focus countries.