Job Opening at SunCulture Kenya Limited

Details:

Position Summary

Reporting to the Head of Credit, for this six months engagement, the ideal candidate  will ensure proper management of the PAYG portfolio. This includes having a thorough knowledge of where his/her customers are based to having their primary and secondary data essential for client management. Being the voice of the company to the customer s/he will be managing and providing advisory services to clients from when the customers purchases SunCulture product to when they affect the final payment of the product.

Does this sound interesting? If so, are you looking to;

• Relationship Management
  • Act as coordinator of relationship between Client and SunCulture with a focus on the long term
  • Monitoring of client portfolio by making follow up calls and sending Texts and IVR
  • Gathering client feedback on PAYG program and communicating the feedback to all relevant persons
  • Monitor and manage loan repayment activities of own portfolio.
  • become the main point of contact and coordinator of services for PAYG Portfolio Client, monitoring their portfolio and making follow up calls and sending text and IVR as and whenever required.
  • Ensure all clients in your portfolio are issued with a contract upon being enrolled on the scheme and a receipt upon completion of payment.
  • Data Collections and Analysis
  • Perform interviews (& document findings) with clients in your portfolio to assess motivations behind their buying behaviors
  • Collecting all the primary and secondary data of all the assigned clients in your portfolio .Through survey identify potential clients that could benefit from PAYG financing scheme.
• Portfolio  Management
  • Audit all PAYG customers and assess their credibility before recommending them for approval to benefit from the scheme
  • performing the Credit Assessment Process and ensure customer due diligence is done before enrolling the customer on PAYG Business model
• Agronomy Support Services
  • Provide Agronomy  Support service to all the customers  through frequent communication and providing agronomy support to all the customers at least until the first harvest of their crops
  • Conducting research through the existing clients and identify the agronomy support needs for the farmers and solutions to their problems.
  • Actively participate in all agronomy pilots and innovative technology  and communicate new findings to all where applicable.

Good, so you are interested in the organization and what the role entails. But, do you have what we are looking for?

• A Degree in Agronomy or related course
• Evidence of well-developed organisational skills and the ability to meet deadlines
• Integrity and ability to work in consumer finance with small scale farmers across Kenya
• Sound verbal communication skills including the ability to negotiate respectfully and communicate rationale for decisions made.
• Self-starter and a functional problem solver
• Demonstrated ability to follow policy and procedures.
• Sound judgement, analytical and decision making skills.
• Accuracy and attention to detail.
• Demonstrated ability to quickly learn new systems and processes.    
• Experience in working with targets and strict deadlines
• Demonstrated commitment to service excellence.
• Computer literacy

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Position Summary

Reporting to the Head of Credit, the ideal candidate is responsible for collections of defaulted portfolio, racing & recovery of all Sunculture assets assigned on credit but defaulted, issuance of Demand letters in the field  & initiation of repossession rights on all non performing credits above Sunculture’s Payg credit policy guidelines.

Does this sound interesting? If so, are you looking to;

• Be accountable for reducing delinquency for assigned accounts
• Ensure allocated accounts are monitored on a daily basis and appropriate actions taken to ensure that the collection portfolio remains within accepted limits through the application of sound credit judgment within Sunculture Payg credit policy guidelines.
• Investigate and resolve any customer queries and complaints through verbal or written correspondence in line with Sunculture Payg credit policies.
• Issue out demand letters at field level to defaulters with the aim to get payments back to normalcy.
• Record new commitment to repay debt (PTPs), determine if debt can be collected and accordingly recommend/initiate recovery process.
• Contact defaulting customers either by calling or visiting them with an aim of negotiating a settlement of the arrears.
• Initiate Repossession of Sunculture Assets were necessary.
• Achieve the monthly collection targets as assigned by supervisor
• Identify and escalate deceased or disabled customers to Head of Credit  for review or collection termination.
• Ensure all work queues are acted upon.
• Conduct field visit assessment before visiting the market areas.
• Manage relationships with local authorities and Security Officers
• Plan and organize field collection drives across all regions
• Conduct monthly reporting as per portfolio performance on Delinquency.

Good, so you are interested in the organization and what the role entails. But, do you have what we are looking for?

• At least 3-6 years’ work experience in debt collection in a microfinance or such organization
• Knowledge of relevant legal requirements and processes in microfinance and credit collections  environment or any other financial institution
• Evidence of well-developed organisational skills and the ability to meet deadlines.
• Integrity and ability to work in consumer finance with small scale farmers across Kenya
• Sound verbal communication skills including the ability to negotiate respectfully and communicate rationale for decisions made.
• Self-starter-functional problem solver
• Demonstrated ability to follow policy and procedures.
• Sound judgement, analytical and decision making skills.
• Accuracy and attention to detail.
• Demonstrated ability to quickly learn new systems and processes.    
• Demonstrated commitment to service excellence.
• Computer literacy

Lastly, the ideal candidate must be competent at;

• Sales and Business Development
• Enforcement of contract and repayment obligations
• Interpersonal and communication at all levels
• Information Collection
• Experience in working with targets and strict deadlines.

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Details:

Purpose & Mission

SunCulture's mission is to make smallholder farming households more productive. Through passion for agriculture and technology, it has developed a solution that combines affordable solar water pumping and customized irrigation system. SunCulture is taking an active part in improving not only the lives of farmers, but also the environment by reducing CO2 emissions and water usage. SunCulture’s flagship product is called the RainMaker, a world class solar-powered irrigation system for smallholder farmers.

AgOptimized:

Given trends of changing weather, lack of infrastructure and financing for smallholder farmers and feedback from farmers, we are launching AgOptimized, our $50 farm sensor + app package which increases yield by 45% with 35% lower input costs by offering real-time recommendations on when to plant seeds, irrigate, apply fertilizer, or treat a future pest outbreak. We also offer other products on this AgOptimized platform such as tractor, market access and inputs in order to enable one stop shop farmers.

Position Summary

The lead agronomist will be responsible for leading a team of junior agronomists on the ground to develop world-class agronomy recommendations for farmers throughout Kenya. They will interface with farmers to make complex, sophisticated AgOptimized technology come to life in the context.

Responsibilities

• Conduct field research into optimum planting methods for common horticulture and commodity crops and prepare reports on data collected;
• Offer advisory support to SunCulture farmers including fertilizer application, irrigation timing, pest forecasting, etc.;
• Pilot new features of AgOptimized application in the field with lead farmers;
• Provide context on the ground to how agronomy algorithms should be adjusted based on local conditions;
• Train field technicians to collect soil, water, and plant tissue samples;
• Train field technicians to identify common crop pests and remedies;
• Review and analyze crop field data;
• Run large control trials to test the efficiency of SunCulture products and services; and
• Lead a team of junior agronomists on the ground to complete tasks above in an efficient manner.

Requirements

• Masters or PhD from top Kenyan University in Horticulture, Soil Science, or other similar discipline from an accredited Kenyan or international university;
• Technical experience in agronomy or horticultural R&D ( PhD with a minimum of 5 years; MS with a minimum of 7 years ;
• High agronomy technical knowledge, analytical and research skills;
• Strong understanding and experience calculating fertilizer content, EC, ETp, etc;
• Experience creating and understanding digital content;
• Experience working directly with farmers, plus excellent communication and human relation skills;
• Has worked with sophisticated software/hardware, such as weather stations and soil sensors;
• Has published academic research
• Extensive knowledge of Kenyan soils, horticultural sector, integrated pest management (IPM), and drip irrigation methods
• Background in Data science
• Comfortable with ambiguity and working with remote coworkers
• Can write 30 page paper but can synthesize it into a brief in layman's terms
• Familiar with content creation: videos, photos, papers
• Familiar with IoT, ML, and AI is a plus