Full Time
One Acre Fund - Ethiopia
Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
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Ethiopia Impact Ventures Associate
About One Acre Fund Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund supplies smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms vastly more productive. We provide quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural trainings to improve harvests. We measure our success by our ability to make farmers more prosperous: On average, farmers harvest 50 percent more food after working with One Acre Fund. We are growing quickly. We currently serve more than 800,000 farm families in Eastern and Southern Africa, with more than 7,500 full-time staff, and we aim to serve 1 million farm families by 2020. Job Description One Acre Fund Ethiopia is growing quickly, and we plan to at least quadruple our farmer impact in the next five years though our two current programs, one focused on tree seedling production and dissemination to small-scale farmers and the other on improving community-based production of teff seed. Impact Ventures Associates play a major role in driving the growth of our programs and ensuring that this growth is stable and systematic – while also adding major innovations and improvements to our program quality. This role offers a strong career opportunity: the ability to learn from a successful field operation, contribute to aggressive growth, and to make improvements to our program. Impact Ventures Associates start as generalists, with responsibility for discrete projects related to the design and execution of our programs. These projects increase in scope and complexity as they develop skills and leadership competencies. Over time, they can continue to rise as a general leader, possibly growing to manage an entire field program. On a day-to-day basis, the Impact Ventures Associate role involve a mix of activities:
Understanding and solving problems: observing field operations, meeting with leaders of our field staff, running surveys, conducting desk and qualitative research, analyzing KPIs, etc. Then creating simple and lasting solutions to complex problems.
Planning and executing projects: identifying clear goals, creating project calendars, designing workflows, creating field tools and talking points, designing incentive systems and understanding stakeholders, following up and monitoring project execution in the field, etc.
Building teams: hiring staff using One Acre Fund’s unique “experiential hiring” system, mentoring key deputies, and steadily handing off responsibility to your team as you build it.
Communicating with other teams : working in coordination with One Acre Fund’s other teams on the ground to execute a smooth customer experience in the simplest way possible.
We Are Currently Seeking To Hire An Impact Ventures Associate To Lead 2-3 Of The Following Projects, Depending On Experience Level, Skill Set, And Fit
Agroforestry program design : first learn from our organization’s deep knowledge on scaling rural field programs; then, work find and systematically evaluate new ways for our teams to grow faster, deepen the impact and become leaner. This role would involve development of trainings and other program materials as well as analytical structuring to evaluate various potential program changes.
Agronomy and behavior change. Become an expert in both the agronomy of our promoted trees and seeds and also in behavior change methodology, designing training materials and program improvements to push for higher adoption of our products and recommended practices and to maximize the impact of every client touchpoint.
Field leadership development. As part of the challenge to grow while maintaining impact and financial sustainability, adapt leadership and core skills trainings to Ethiopia’s programs and lead the rollout of these trainings out across dozens, and later hundreds, of staff, tracking staff progress and growth while iterating to continually improve the program.
Seed multiplication program leadership. We are conducting a two-year trial to test the efficacy of multiplying, processing and selling quality teff seed through cooperative farmers, while also validating the yields of other crops/varieties. Lead the trial, adapting agronomic protocols and ensuring that farmers and cooperatives adhere to them through a coordinator and small field staff.
Tree trial nursery operations. In an aim to deepen our impact through trees, we have established a trial nursery for experimentation with various seedling production practices and new species, including fruit trees. Identify practices, design trials, ensure the trials are rigorously implemented and evaluated and provide recommendations to the main program team.
Core tree program operations leadership. Our core tree team currently oversees a network of 63 kebele-level nurseries to produce 2.5+ million tree seedlings for 25,000+ farmers, and we wish to expand this program significantly in the future. We are thus facing a classic leadership and management challenge: how to keep a country operation growing at 40-75% per year while increasing quality of service and making significant improvements to our operating model. At the heart of this is unleashing the potential in our field team leaders and ensuring execution stays on track.
The Impact Ventures Associate will likely start by leading 2-3 projects from the above list of project areas and will have direct management responsibilities for at least two staff members, who may also be team managers. They will be expected to operate at a high level of independence in terms of medium -term goal setting for the work and in converting the organization’s vision to a set strategy and tactics. They will initiate process improvements and represent the projects to One Acre Fund global with minimal manager support. They will be expected to create very high quality deliverables that need very minimal revision from their manager. Although our Ethiopia programs are still relatively small, One Acre Fund has deep operational experience running rural field programs at a scale of 1,000+ full-time staff per country. Impact Ventures Specialists and Associates benefit from this past experience, quickly building their skill-set through immersion in our operating environment. At the same time, the main role of Impact Ventures Specialist and Associates is to accelerate growth and to constantly stretch and improve our operations. This presents an excellent career opportunity to both learn from One Acre Fund’s accumulated experience and constantly improve and enable 40%+ program growth per year. Career Growth and Development We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career. Qualifications We are seeking one exceptional Ethiopian professional(s) with 5+ years of work experience and ideally a demonstrated passion for our mission. 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 Ethiopia, leading a large conference, starting a business, etc.
Leadership experience at work, or outside of work. This could be taking the initiative to start and finish something significant that involves others, not necessarily management experience.
Quantitative literacy, critical thinking, computer skills and a strong analytical approach to problem-solving. This should include typing speed of 30 WPM or higher and intermediate Excel skills.
Humility, collaboration skills, initiative and a strong drive to excel on assigned projects
A willingness to commit to living in Bahir Dar and travel weekly to rural kebeles 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 rural areas, although this is not a strict requirement.
Bachelors or Master’s Degree in Agriculture, Plant Science, Forestry, Horticulture, Natural Resource Management or other related subject is an asset but not required.
Language: Fluent English is required; proficient Amharic is an asset.
Preferred Start Date As Soon As Possible Location Bahir Dar, Ethiopia Compensation Commensurate with experience. Salary information will be provided later in the application processes. Benefits Health insurance, housing, 5 weeks paid vacation, other benefits to be shared later. Sponsor International Candidates No. Only Ethiopian nationals and those with work authorization in Ethiopia should apply. Ethiopian women and men are encouraged to apply.
