Senior Program Manager Food Crops/ Coffee at International Trade & Development

Are you an organized, engaging, self-motivated, team player with a strong interest in supply chain sustainability and innovation? Do you get energy from co-designing and developing multi-tier research strategies? And are you looking for a job that gives you the chance to be creative, strategic and work with professionals on sustainable trade in your African Network? Then apply to our Senior Program Manager position in Nairobi, Kenya.

The role

As Senior Program Manager you are responsible for leading a 1-year scoping process for innovative service delivery models in Kenya and Uganda through the coffee sector. Your output from this process will drive the design of a 4-year implementation program by integrating results from research, stakeholder engagement and smallholder farmer interest to enable field tests of new business models that integrate coffee with other crops to serve farmers in their holistic farm needs, effectively forging new business partnerships and improving smallholder resilience and representation in business decisions. You will travel across Kenya and Uganda to develop strong partnerships, guide and validate field and stakeholder research, and host stakeholder workshops.

This position reports to IDH Coffee Program Manager - Africa.

Your key responsibilities would be:

• Program scoping & design: Co-design and develop multi-tier practical research strategy, manage sub-contracting, review results and provide actionable and timely feedback to research partner(s).
• Convening/influencing: Engage with private sector and other stakeholders to participate and co-invest in our program through sharing research findings, leading workshops and bi-lateral engagements at field and decision-making levels of the partner organisation. The ability to understand, integrate and represent smallholders is paramount.
• Business/partnership development: Build commitment for program implementation by securing MOUs for delivery of innovative business models.
• Internal coordination: Communicate and align where needed on progress, milestones, stakeholder engagement and other key information among internal stakeholders in Coffee Program and FarmFit in East Africa and The Netherlands.
• Reporting/communications/operations: Attend relevant meetings to represent IDH and keep the pulse of regional changes and trends in the coffee and relevant food crop sectors.  Distil lessons, research and convening activities into reports, overseeing PTE communications officer for public official internal/external communications resulting from scoping activities.

Who you are

You are experience in engaging directly with smallholder farmers and can understand their farm and household behaviour. As you are analytical and practical you are able to work on the different projects from beginning to end. Using your creativity and entrepreneurship to put IDH on the map. You are very analytical, data driven and result oriented and therefore can show and share the impact of the IDH work. You have experience in giving multi-stakeholder workshops to share your expertise and excel in your verbal and written communication skills. As you are a networker and have experience in food crop/staples or coffee value chains in Africa, you can interact with all the (international) stakeholders in private and public sector. You can work independently and learn fast this all with a good sense of humour and the ability to find your own way in the Kenya IDH team.

What you bring

• At least 10 years of experience in agricultural supply chains in Africa in a leading position in agribusiness management and/or sourcing departments;
• High levels of entrepreneurial and professional skills, capability and tenacity to drive continued business engagement;·
• A Degree in (agricultural) Economics, Business Management, Supply chain management, (agricultural) Finance, Development Economics or other relevant discipline;
• Experience in project management & (financial) administration and project budgeting.
• Experience in managing (sector and/or sustainability) coalitions and with international development is an advantage;
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English

What we offer

IDH offers a dynamic international environment and an enthusiastic and passionate team. As an IDH team member you can contribute to positive global change. This is a full-time position for an initial period of one year, with the possibility of extension. We offer a consultancy contract with a competitive remuneration. Candidates are based in Nairobi, Kenya and must have permission to work in Kenya.