Job Field: Sector in Administration / Secretarial  , NGO/Non-Profit

Wanted
Exceptional leaders with 3+ years’ work experience (Associate) or 5+ years’ work experience (Manager) to dream up, trial, and scale new businesses to generate impact for rural families.
Job Location
Associate: Rural East Africa (current markets of operation include Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Malawi).
Manager: Most managers work in our rural offices. In limited instances, certain managers will be based in capital cities with extensive travel (50%).
Duration
Minimum 2 years commitment, full-time job.
Organization Description
More than 75% of the world’s poor are smallholder farmers, representing the largest and most uniform group of poor people in the world. Serving farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania, One Acre Fund is a growing social enterprise that is innovating a new way of helping farm families to achieve their full potential. Instead of giving handouts, One Acre Fund invests in rural families to generate a permanent gain in income. We are growing quickly. Since 2006, we have grown to serve 400,000 farm families with more than 3,000 full-time field staff and we will serve 1 million farmers by 2020.  
Team and Job Description
The mission of the Impact Venture team is to dream up, trial, and scale new businesses to create positive impact for rural families. We invest in “moon shots” and other ambitious ideas to rapidly create impact for tens of millions of families. Examples of new businesses include:
Retail Chains – we set up a chain of retail stores to sell impactful products to rural families. Retail fronts are a traditional, but effective means for marketing and selling goods to key populations of people.
Seed Technology – improved seed varieties provide rural households with better returns than just about any other technology. We are running large scale, innovative marketing campaigns at the regional level to raise adoption of the best available seeds on the market. We are also investing in supply side opportunities to increase the quantity of seeds available to farmers.
Government Services – we are partners with local, regional and national governments to improve the quality and impact of government services for rural families. These partnerships allow us to help deliver critical information and services to hundreds of thousands of families.
Product Design – we are designing, prototyping, trialing, and producing new products for rural families. Initial categories of products include agricultural tools and household utility products.
We are seeking exceptional individuals to join this early-stage team to help us scale early stage ventures and dream up new opportunities. In general, team members focus on a single business at a time. We try to match team members with their passions as best as possible. Responsibilities for qualified candidates will include:
Direct Trials and Support Rapid Scale to a Regional or National level. New team members are expected to own key operational functions and run trials to test key questions to help us create businesses which can generate significant impact and grow at a rapid pace. Example projects include:
– an Associate on the Impact Venture team opened a series of stores in rural communities to sell key goods and services. The Associate hired and managed a growing team to run the operation, developed operational strategies to select store locations and organize store operations, and worked with global teams to develop inventory and cash tracking processes.
– a Manager hired a team of 75 people to run a series of marketing trials to promote use of improved seed. Improved seed is proven to significantly increase yields at very little added cost. The Manager designed our messaging strategy and marketing materials and established partnerships with dozens of local private businesses to increase sales of improved seed in communities with very low adoption levels.
– an Associate is running trials to test the efficacy of different mobile tools, from two-way SMS to IVR to mobile games. Our goal is to use these mobile tools to support our different business units to communicate with existing and prospective clients.
Dream Big and Operationlize New Ideas – identify innovations to enhance new business units and contribute to organizational strategy in identifying new opportunities to pursue. Team members are expected to prioritize new ideas and figure out how to translate the best ideas into live trials and operations.
Build and Manage a Team – hire, develop, and lead a team to effectively execute in the field. To grow fast, Associate and Managers need to be capable of hiring and leading large teams in short periods of time.
Coordinate with External Partners – manage relationships with key partners who are relevant to our work. Partners could include executives at seed companies, representatives from solar companies, key officials in government ministries, etc.
Qualifications
We are seeking ambitious young 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:
3 – 6+ years of work experience.
Demonstrated passion for, and preferably experience in, cultivating and developing new ideas and opportunities. We want people who are entrepreneurs at heart.
Leadership experience at work, or outside of work
Top-performing academic background.
Independence and ownership. Associate and Managers will be expected to operate and grow operations with moderate oversight. We want team members who thrive with a lot of independence.
Humility. 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 rural areas of East Africa. The ideal candidate will have at least one year demonstrated experience working in the developing world, although this is not a strict requirement.
Ability to cook / laugh – desirable.
Language: English required.
Preferred Start Date
Flexible
Sponsor International Candidates 
Yes
East Africans strongly encouraged to apply.
go to method of application »

Job Location
Kakamega, Kenya  (English required)
 
Job Description
One Acre Fund’s Kenya program grows in scope and complexity each year. We add new products, services, and input distributions; new ways of collecting repayment and enrolling clients; and new policies and procedures to incentivize and enforce good performance. Our program size roughly triples every two years.
The Operations Division – a collection of back-office functions including Logistics, Customer Engagement, Orders, Collections, Print, and Internal Investigations – works to (re)design and execute the processes necessary to keep up with program change, growth, and innovation. We live on the edge of what’s possible, and accept significant executional risk and technical debt to increase the total amount of social good that we produce, through more impact per client and more total clients. The result is a fast-paced, constantly evolving and growing work environment. We seek individuals who are excited by BIG challenges and comfortable building structure where we haven’t yet placed it.
We place a heavy emphasis on both execution and staff growth and development. We strive to create a safe learning environment that is forgiving of internal mistakes, with safety mechanisms to catch any errors before they ripple outside of our division. Simultaneously, we offer stretch-projects to all staff because we believe that growth comes through practice. We seek team members who are eager to embrace both of these important priorities.  
As the Kenya Operations Associate/Manager, your duties will include:
Supporting one or more teams within the operations division.
Mentoring and developing key team leaders.
Working closely with our Field Program and Innovations teams to support program impact assessments – For each proposed programmatic change, what existing processes will shift and what additional short and long-term support is needed.
Managing operations projects – Some examples include:
Identifying, codifying, and documenting mature processes – How we execute the routine stuff to run our program, like servicing product warranties, allocating field staff to operational geographies, disbursing refunds, issuing client repayment incentives, etc. etc. etc.
Formalizing QC processes and checklists to deskill our entry-level roles.
Supporting the development and maintenance of a simple country-wide “Service Catalog” that outlines the services each One Acre Fund team offers.
Managing operations innovations – some examples include:
Migrating existing paper processes to tablets, speeding the flow of data from field to office and back.
Professionalizing our Customer Service team’s call routing, call volume projections, case tracking, and associated reporting.
Preparing for “rolling” program enrollment and deliveries if and as we move away from a highly seasonal program.
Building bridges between our Field Program leadership and our back-office.
Humbly and cheerfully doing whatever unexpected work is necessary to keep the ship afloat and strengthen it against future unexpected icebergs.
 
Career Growth and Development
One Acre Fund invests heavily 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.
 
Qualifications
We are seeking exceptional professionals with 2-5+ years of work experience. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply: 
Humble, clear, deft verbal and written communicator; comfortable saying “no” and making complicated ideas simple for a wide range of audiences
Calm, positive, and collaborative under fire
Demonstrated passion for designing and re-engineering operational processes
STEM background a strong plus
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; Swahili-speakers are particularly encouraged to apply.
 
Preferred Start Date
As soon as possible.
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 encourage to apply.
go to method of application »