Career Opportunities at One Acre Fund - 5 Positions

Responsibilities:

Business Development Manager:

• Build and manage a high-value portfolio of existing donors and potential new prospects in targeted segments as part of the implementation of our bilateral/ multilateral and private non-US giving business development strategy. For example:
• Identify, research, and maintain a robust pipeline of potential prospects
• Develop relationships with new prospective funders in targeted segments to develop successful funding proposals to support the organization, shepherding proposals through all required stages and decision-making processes
• Steward existing donor relationships in the targeted segments to manage the required reporting and continued development of successful proposals
• Over time, grow a team to handle end-to-end donor management, from research to stewardship to proposal writing to reporting and compliance.
• Develop strong fluency in agricultural development, poverty alleviation, and One Acre Fund’s activities and impact in order to support external representation and donor stewardship and build excitement about our work among donor communities
• Represent One Acre Fund at conferences and donor meetings, as needed
• Host our key donors visiting Africa as part of the stewardship process
• Support the business development team with internal coordination and process improvement
• Establish and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders and partners (Policy, Communications, Field, and Finance teams)
• Collaborate with Business Development management and other team members to proactively improve processes, tools, and ways of working
• Keep organized. We are not a boss-employee culture. We would like to hire someone who can manage his or her own work, and will truly own the role.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager will invest significant time in your career development. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through mentorship and through regular management consulting-style career reviews. We also have regular one-on-one meetings, where we listen to and discuss career goals, and work collaboratively to craft roles that each person can be passionate about. Because of our rapid growth, we constantly have new high-level roles opening up and opportunities in many functions. This results in fast career growth for our staff.

Qualifications

Professional Qualifications and Requirements

We are seeking a professional with 8+ years of work experience and demonstrated passion for a career in international development. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Top–performing academic background. Minimum of a bachelor’s degree in a related field, graduate degree strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated senior leadership experiences at or outside of work.
• Genuine passion for international development. We are seeking someone who is truly passionate about providing opportunity to the hardest-working farmers on the planet.
• Past experience in international development and/or fundraising is a plus: The ideal candidate will have past experience in international fundraising, or project/reporting experience with bilaterals and multilaterals.
• Strong ability to understand business. We would like to hire someone who will truly understand our operations, and be able to communicate about them simply and effectively.
• Past experience in a fast-paced, relationship-driven work environment, such as management consulting, is a plus.
• Professional/technical skills: Advanced proficiency in PowerPoint and Excel; and professional effective verbal and written communication, multi-tasking, organizational, prioritization skills are necessary.
• Experience with SalesForce is a plus
• People-orientation. We are seeking someone with demonstrated experience in relationship building and excellent communications and presentation skills. This skill is particularly important as the role will be partially externally facing.
• Values fit. We put a high premium on values. We want someone who has a true service orientation and humility – someone that puts our farmers before themselves.
• Humility and personal stability. We are looking for passionate professionals who combine leadership skills with good humor, patience, and a humble approach to service.
• Willingness to be based in Nairobi and willingness to travel. This role is based in Nairobi, Kenya and will have up to 20-30% travel, within Africa and other international destinations. Dates of travel are highly variable.
• Language: English fluency required (written and spoken); French is a bonus, Swahili is a bonus

Personal Attributes

The following personal attributes are desired:

• A deep commitment to serving the poor.
• A passion for One Acre Fund's program
• Comfort and experience working with individuals from diverse backgrounds and locations.
• High energy level, and a personable, flexible, tenacious, diplomatic, and respectful demeanor.
• Proven ability to serve as a team player and leader able to motivate and inspire staff and colleagues.
• Entrepreneurial spirit.
• A sense of humor.

Travel Requirement

Up to 20-30% domestically and internationally.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible.

Compensation

Commensurate with experience + benefits package.

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Job Description

One Acre Fund believes its most valuable asset is its people. We invest significant resources in our team, including trialing new and innovative ways of recruiting, developing, and retaining talent. Our goal is to build a team of the world’s best international development professionals who are committed to putting Farmers First.

People Operations Innovations (iPOPS) is tasked with helping One Acre Fund achieve its most pressing people-related goals. The iPOPS associate will immediately take on the team’s recruitment innovations portfolio, including projects of major strategic importance to the organization. The role will involve running recruitment project trials and supporting our Global Recruitment Team.

Projects include:

• Build the organization’s network of experienced candidates by running an outreach trial to ~100 professionals in East Africa.
• Provide targeted outreach support to the Global Recruitment Team, with a focus on trials for high-priority recruitment needs.
• Research new recruitment prospects and own key outreach relationships.
• Manage one-off special projects. For example, a project to better understand our labor market or enhance our employer brand.
• Conduct some day-to-day recruitment activities, including running ~3 interviews/week, attending weekly Global Recruitment Team meetings, and liaising with Global Recruitment Team managers.

iPOPS responds directly to the organization’s strategic people needs. While this role will initially focus on recruitment, the project portfolio will likely shift over time to include other initiatives to help hire, grow, and retain our team. As you grow in your role, you will have the opportunity to propose projects that solve “people problems” and take on new projects and responsibilities.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager and a global support team will commit significant time in your career development. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through mentorship and through regular management consulting-style career reviews. We also have regular one-on-one meetings, where we listen to and discuss career goals, and work collaboratively to craft roles that each person can be passionate about. Because of our rapid growth, we constantly have new high-level roles opening up and opportunities in many functions.

Qualifications

We are seeking someone with a genuine interest in people and exceptional productivity. The ideal candidates possesses the following qualities:

• Genuine passion for people: We are committed to building an exceptional global team at One Acre Fund. Ideal candidates must intrinsically understand of the importance of team in achieving our organizational goals. Experience in organizational development, change management, diversity and inclusion, or operations is a plus.
• Exceptional productivity and independence: The iPOPS associate will immediately responsible for hitting challenging targets and must be able to quickly plow through a large volume of work with increasing independent project ownership.
• Strategic thinker: The ideal candidate will constantly seek new ways to achieve our ambitious people objectives. We’re not looking for someone who only does payroll or recruitment. We’re looking for someone who overhauled a payroll system or implemented a new recruitment campaign and achieved results.
• Professionalism and leadership presence: The iPOPS associate will be immediately coordinating senior organization leadership and liaising with external professionals. Candidates must be exceptional representatives of One Acre Fund.
• Collaborative spirit: The iPOPS associate will regularly collaborate with the Global Recruitment Team, other departments, and organization leadership, and must be able to effectively coordinate stakeholders.
• A humble approach to service: We are looking for passionate professionals who combine strong leadership skills with good humor, patience, and humility. Responsiveness to feedback is a must.
• A willingness to commit to this position: This is a long–term role that requires a minimum two-year commitment.
• Language: English required; Swahili, Kinyarwanda, and/or French a plus.

Travel Requirement

Up to 15-20% regional travel.

Preferred Start Date

Flexible, but as soon as possible.

Compensation

We offer a modest starting salary that affords a high quality of life in our areas of operation. This is a career-track role with performance-based raises and the ability to expand responsibilities over time.

Benefits

Health insurance, immunizations, flights, housing.

Sponsor International Candidates

No

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Job Location

Kakamega, Kenya; Rubengera, Rwanda; Muramvya, Burundi; Iringa, Tanzania; Jinja, Uganda; Iringa, Tanzania.

Duration

Minimum 3 years commitment, full-time job. We will be making a commitment to your development as a young professional, and expect in return a serious commitment to serving our farmers.

Job Description

One Acre Fund’s field-facing operations are the front lines of our mission, and a place where our work is evolving rapidly. Our Program Rotation Associate position is designed to grow exceptional early-career professionals into a group capable of addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing One Acre Fund (and the social impact space more broadly). This program will provide highly qualified candidates a chance to contribute to our field program from a variety of angles. Selected Program Rotation Associates will have the opportunity to rotate through a variety of field-based postings, followed by one longer posting:

• First 18 months: rotation between 3 different six-month long posts;
• Next 18 months: spent in a single role of particular importance to the organization and interest to the candidate;
• Afterward: opportunity to join one of our teams permanently.

Example rotations include:

• Field Operations: This team is the direct service provider to our farmers, with the primary objective of building the capacity of our local staff to provide financially sustainable impact, at scale, to all One Acre Fund farmers. A rotation with Field Operations could include managing an entire season’s worth of training materials for 100,000+ farmers, designing incentives to ensure high repayment, or serving as a liaison to our crop health teams which monitor in-field agricultural problems for our farmers.
• Business Operations: The objective of our Operations departments is to ensure that we are able to deliver on all of our promises to our clients. Operations encompasses mission-critical systems like finance, client data management, print, procurement and investigations. A rotation with Business Operations could include running bulk SMS service for 100,000+ farmers, creating a new customer service line and systems to support it, or ensuring that we can process farmer insurance claims fairly and rapidly.
• Logistics: The primary responsibility of our Logistics team is to ensure that we deliver life-changing inputs and materials to farmers on time and at high quality. A rotation with Logistics would likely include managing a season’s worth of deliveries to thousands of farmers, including planning, troubleshooting, procurement of trucks, liaising with warehouses, etc.
• Program Innovations: The Scale Innovations team aims to deepen One Acre Fund’s impact on every community we serve by increasing the percent of households who join our program, and by developing innovations that help our field staff serve farmers better. Example projects with the Scale Innovations team include running trials related to using tablet computers in field operations, a “junior OAF member” marketing trial, or reconfiguring the role of farmer group leaders in our operations.

Program Rotation Associates will work together with the organization to determine their country or countries of operation, individual rotations, and then their final full-time role. We see the Program Rotation Associate role as an opportunity to develop future leaders in international development, while meeting some of One Acre Fund’s most critical field-facing needs. Part of our commitment to this role is offering high-quality professional development and feedback opportunities as our Associates make their way through the various rotations.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager will invest significant time in your career development. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through mentorship and through regular management consulting-style career reviews. We also have regular one-on-one meetings, where we listen to and discuss career goals, and work collaboratively to craft roles that each person can be passionate about. Because of our rapid growth, we constantly have new high-level roles opening up and opportunities in many functions. This results in fast career growth for our staff.

Qualifications

We are seeking exceptional professionals with 2 to 5+ years of work experience, and a demonstrated long-term passion for international development. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Strong work experiences. Examples include a demanding professional work experience, or successful entrepreneurial experience (e.g. starting a field program in a developing country, leading a conference, starting a business, etc).
• Leadership experience at work, or outside of work.
• Top-performing undergraduate background (include GPA and test scores on your resume).
• Humility. We are looking for passionate professionals who combine strong leadership skills with good humor, patience, and a humble approach to service to join our growing family of leaders.
• A willingness to live outside of a capital city, close to our customers for at least two years - this is a long-term, career-track role. The ideal candidate will have at least one year demonstrated experience working in the developing world, although this is not a strict requirement.
• Language: English required in Kenya, French a plus in Rwanda and Burundi. Swahili-speakers are particularly encouraged to apply.

Preferred Start Date

Flexible

Compensation

Starts modest. However, this is a career-track role with fast raises for performance, paying a meaningful salary for long-term placement in developing nations.

Benefits

Health insurance, immunizations, flight, room and board.

Sponsor International Candidates

Yes

East Africans strongly encouraged to apply.

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Job Description

Our Global Director of Systems will be one of the most important people in the organization, and will quickly join the organization-wide leadership group. S/he will be a key deputy of the Global Director of Operations, and will lead all back-office, technology, and supply chain functions in our 5,500+ person organization, spanning several departments.

Building scalable operations in low-infrastructure rural areas is a massive challenge, which is why we are seeking an exceptional leader to help us grow one of the most innovative, flexible and reliable rural delivery networks in the world. Our team physically delivers tens of thousands of tons farm inputs annually, conducting more that 5,000 deliveries to remote and rural locations every year, with incredible accuracy and timeliness. Our software team builds flexible tools to manage innovative loan products in low-connectivity environments, and are currently building many of our core business processes into a tablet application. Our back-office client data team processes over ten million payments per year – many via mobile money networks – and uses an SMS receipting system to create a digital paper trail for our customers. We receive and process millions of unique and customized client orders each year in a narrow pre-planting order window, and provide unparalleled after sales service through our local call centers. Scaling this network to reach 5-10x as many clients in the next decade will require tremendous leadership, vision, and a laser-focus on execution.

Our long-term vision is to build the largest and most impactful rural distribution network in the world, delivering and financing affordable, life-changing products and services to the world’s most underserved farming communities. Our Global Systems Division is at the heart of this vision, and a cornerstone of our efforts to address rural hunger and poverty on a continent-wide scale.

The overarching goals for this role are to:

• Continue building best-in-class supply chain, client data management, customer service, and software/technology functions
• Grow our operations teams in an efficient and scalable manner to serve more clients across a larger geography
• Drive innovation across all operations teams to adapt to the needs of a changing program model, as well as new business units

Specific Responsibilities include:

Setting Vision & Strategy:

• Work with senior leaders to collaboratively set and execute on long-term vision for all operations functions, under the “Systems Division” umbrella
• Work with leadership on organizational design and change management, to help maintain a high-performing, motivated, and impactful team
• Build and maintain strong collaborative working relationships across several global departments, and amongst key leaders in all countries
• Identify and execute on key areas for strategic innovation

Building Team: Day-to-day management of multiple director-level staff, with a total team size of several dozen staff

• The following teams fall under the management of the Global Director of Systems:
  • Supply chain (rural distribution & input purchasing), Procurement, Client Data Management, Customer Service, Software Development, IT Operations
• Global Director of Systems will be responsible for rapidly growing the careers of the leaders of these departments through weekly check-ins and workshops, ongoing development feedback, and bi-annual career reviews.

Executing on Key Organizational Initiatives: Deliver results on key organizational initiatives related to all aspects of our operations, including:

• Supply chain
  • Drive down costs to the farmer through smart purchasing and supply chain efficiencies
  • Improve the controls environment to minimize input loss
  • Adapt supply chain to offer new products across a broader geography
• Technology
  • Build tools on tablets and mobile phones that improve field-force effectiveness, client impact, and operational efficiency
  • Implement mobile payment systems across all of our countries of operation
  • Maintain and improve upon our in-house, custom CRM system
• Data Systems
  • Improve data flows between key operational data systems to support analysis and decision making
• Customer Service and Protection
  • Scale the teams and systems required to receive inquires and feedback from hundreds of thousands of customers, and monitor and enforce our client protection principles
• Generally - design and implement innovative and impactful systems that can scale across several countries in E. Africa, Europe, North America, and Asia
• Note: Most work will be done through our incredible team of key deputies and department directors, but direct involvement in sketching, creating, and editing of key deliverables will be required.

Leading Innovation in Operations: Drive innovation across all operations functions, by thinking creatively and outside the box. Example focus areas include:

• Increase delivery network flexibility, allowing farmers to order goods more frequently and receive them with less lag time
• Identify opportunities to digitize data flows to improve operational efficiency
• Explore new client communication channels, such as two-way SMS, interactive voice, and call centers

Communication:

• Serve as the global voice for all operations-related issues, to the organization and top leadership

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager and a global support team will commit significant time in your career development. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through mentorship and through regular management consulting-style career reviews. We also have regular one-on-one meetings, where we listen to and discuss career goals, and work collaboratively to craft roles that each person can be passionate about. Because of our rapid growth, we constantly have new high-level roles opening up and opportunities in many functions.

Qualifications

We are seeking exceptional candidates with 8-15+ years work experience as a general manager/ leader in a fast-growing organization, and a propensity for innovation – C-level executives or co-founders would be ideal candidates. Prior operations experience preferred but not required, if the candidate has held a senior-level position at an innovative organization. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encourage to apply:

• Passion for operations, building scalable and efficient systems, and solving problems in a difficult operating environment
• Proven ability to manage teams and develop leaders; experience in remote management a plus
• Strong data and analytical skills; advanced Excel a plus
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience working in a multi-cultural work place in a developing country a plus
• Creativity and strong problem solving skills
• Top-performing educational background; related Master’s Degree is an asset, but not strictly required
• We are looking for passionate professionals who combine strong leadership skills with good humor, patience, and a humble approach to service.
• A willingness to commit to living in East Africa for at least two years – this is a long-term, career-track role.
• Language: Fluent English required

Preferred Start Date

Flexible

Compensation

We offer a modest starting salary that affords a high quality of life in our areas of operation. This is a career-track role with performance-based raises and the ability to expand responsibilities over time.

Benefits

Health insurance, immunizations, flights, housing.

Sponsor International Candidates

Yes.

East Africans strongly encouraged to apply.

go to method of application »

Job Description

One Acre Fund is growing quickly, and we plan to at least quadruple our farmer impact in the next five years. Our staff play a major role in driving that growth while adding major innovations and improvements to our program quality. This offers staff members a strong career opportunity: the ability to learn from a successful field operation, contribute to aggressive growth, and also make improvements to our program.

We are currently seeking an Analyst on the Product Innovations team in Kenya. This team works to discover new ideas for our programs and conducts dozens of trials to test them. We have a broad portfolio of many focus areas, including staple crops, new agricultural technologies, solar energy, livestock, market access, nutrition, and health. As an organization, we constantly seek to learn and improve, and our innovations teams lead the way, developing ideas that could potentially improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of households.

The Product Innovations Analyst role would include the following primary responsibilities:

• Conducting rigorous statistical analyses of trials: analyzing data from complex trials that touch on many different topic areas and that utilize design principles such as randomization, propensity score matching, and other research methods.
• Translating complex data topics for diverse audiences: synthesizing and summarizing data and trial results such that they can be presented to diverse audiences and used effectively in decision-making.
• Supporting the design of rigorous research trials: advising on trial design decisions such as sample size and sampling method, selection of appropriate control groups, statistical power, and ensuring that trials can meet stated objectives and answer target questions.
• Advising on data quality improvements: providing guidance and input to our monitoring and evaluation team to improve data collection methods, developing tools and resources that can identify data quality problems, and implementing best practices for data accuracy.
• Staff mentorship: leading trainings for team members on data analysis and data fluency, developing and revising training materials and resources, and providing targeted mentorship to key staff to build their data analysis and trial design skills.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager will invest significant time in your career development. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through mentorship and through regular management consulting-style career reviews. We also have regular one-on-one meetings, where we listen to and discuss career goals, and work collaboratively to craft roles that each person can be passionate about. Because of our rapid growth, we constantly have new high-level roles opening up and opportunities in many functions. This results in fast career growth for our staff.

Qualifications

We are seeking an exceptional professional with 2+ years of work experience and ideally a demonstrated passion for international development. Candidates fitting the following profile are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Strong work experiences. Examples include a demanding professional work experience, or successful entrepreneurial experience – for example, starting a field program in a developing country, leading a conference, starting a business, solid Volunteer Service Organization accomplishments (e.g., VSO, Peace Corps, JICA, etc.).
• Strong analytical and statistical background and experience, with a preference for experience with designing and implementing randomized controlled trials and using R for analysis.
• Leadership experience at work, or outside of work.
• Humility. We are looking for passionate professionals who combine strong leadership skills with good humor, patience, and a humble approach to service to join our growing family of leaders.
• A willingness to commit to living in rural areas of East Africa for at least two years – this is a long-term, career-track role. The ideal candidate will have at least one year demonstrated experience working in the developing world, although this is not a strict requirement.
• Language: English required in all locations. Knowledge of Swahili a plus.
• Ability to cook/laugh – desirable.

Preferred Start Date

ASAP

Compensation

Starts modest. However, this is a career-track role with fast raises for performance, paying a meaningful salary for long-term placement in developing nations.

Benefits

Health insurance, immunizations, flight, room and board.

Sponsor International Candidates

Yes

East Africans are strongly encouraged to apply