One Acre Fund Program Manager Job Vacancy in Kenya, Rwanda & Burundi

Work
in Africa for an innovative, start-up non-profit organization!

Excellent career-track opportunity mixing private-sector management
skill-set with non-profit service for mid-career professionals

 
Industry:Nonprofit/International Development
Function: 
Operations Innovation
Employer: One Acre Fund
Job Title: 
Program Manager (full-time job)
Job Location:  Western Kenya (English required)
or Southwest Rwanda (French required) 

Organization
Description


Most of the world’s poor are farmers, representing the largest and most uniform
group of poor people in the world. One Acre Fund is a start-up NGO in Kenya,
Rwanda, and Burundi that is innovating a new way of helping farm families to
achieve their full potential. Instead of giving handouts, One Acre invests
in farmers to generate a permanent gain in farm income. We provide farmers with
a “market bundle” that includes education, finance, seed and fertilizer, and
market access. Our program is proven impactful – every year, we weigh thousands
of harvests and measure more than 100% average gain in farm income per acre. We
have laser-like focus on generating better lives for the people that we serve.
 
We are growing quickly. In five years, we have grown to serve 65,000 farm
families with more than 500 full-time field staff. In three more years, we will
at least quadruple in size, while adding several new countries. Our approach
has won widespread validation, winning grants from the highly competitive
Echoing Green and Skoll Foundations, and the global Financial Times/ IFC award
for “basic needs financing” in 2010 and 2011. Website: www.oneacrefund.org

 
Job Description
We are seeking exceptional professionals with 4-6 years work experience for
our program manager role, and demonstrated interest and
experience in international development (i.e. 1 year+ living in a developing
nation). They will serve in a career-track position that combines both field
and management experience in Africa. As a young organization, we are ready to
hand over large responsibility for specific, well-defined work modules, with
similar structure to an operations consulting role.
 
Projects will be focused on improvements to One Acre Fund’s program model – as
opposed to day-to-day operations, which are operated by our country staff. The
typical program manager leads several major projects, and several smaller ones
– typically projects with higher degree of difficulty. Example projects
include:
  • Operations projects. One Acre Fund
    may set up a bean-seed production company, an area we have identified as a
    major humanitarian opportunity in East Africa. A program manager in Rwanda
    pioneered the protocols associated with starting a bean seed production
    company, and is investigating possible scale-up.
  • Middle-management training series.
    As we rapidly expand our field operation, we need to recruit and develop a
    large number of middle managers. A program manager in Kenya developed a
    unified training series, rolled out some sample trainings with fifteen
    managers, revised, and worked with our Kenya director to deliver the
    trainings.
  • Financial processes. We have a
    program manager who is leading up an effort to rationalize our financial
    processes. As a result of his work, we will now have monthly data on
    actual expenses vs. budget across all budget line items and three
    different districts. He will gradually hand this off to two office staff
    that he is managing. Having this data will lead us into the next phase of
    the work, which is to design and implement a wide variety of cost-cutting
    programs
This is a
career-track role that is intended to eventually transition into a role such as
country director, innovation director, etc. This is also a role that is
eventually tracked to transition to “general partner”, the core leadership
group of One Acre Fund.
 
Qualifications
We are looking for somebody truly extraordinary for the program manager
role. This is an extremely competitive posting for a business/ management-style
position. Only 10% of applicants make it to a phone screen. Therefore, please
do not respond unless you fit these criteria:
  • Demonstrated interest and
    experience in international development, requiring at least one year of
    living in a developing nation.
  • A willingness to commit to living
    in rural areas of East Africa for at least two years, minimum.
    This is a permanent, career-track
    role with no anticipated return to the US.
  • Top-performing undergraduate
    background (include GPA and test scores on your resume)
  • Strong work experiences. Examples
    include professional work experience, or some kind of successful
    entrepreneurial experience (e.g. starting a field program in a developing
    country, leading a conference, starting a business, peace corps)
  • Leadership experience at work, or outside of work
  • Humble approach to service. We have a fantastic and likeable
    team. We are looking for passionate professionals that combine strong
    leadership skills with good humor, patience, and a humble approach to
    service
  • Nice to have: Kiswahili a plus,
    Kinyrwandan or French a plus. English required.
  • Ability to cook/ laugh/
    extraordinary patience – all desirable
Preferred
Start Date:

Flexible
Compensation: Very modest, but enough to save some
money after living expenses. However, raises come quickly for strong
performers.
Benefits: Health cover, immunizations, flight,
room and board. 2 annual home flights provided – home trips include some
speaking and fundraising duties
Career
development:

Quarterly management consulting-style career reviews, and significant
investment in career development. Although the post does not pay very well,
your manager will invest significant time in your career development, and
assist top performers with future placements in either the private sector or
throughout the developing world.
Sponsor
International Candidates:

Yes
 
To Apply
Email cover letter and resume to jobs@oneacrefund.org (Subject line: Program
Manager Search + name of the site that referred you)
Apply
By 30 April 2012

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *