One Acre Fund Program Associate - Rwanda or Burundi (multiple openings)

Job Description

Rapid organization growth translates into great career
opportunities for our staff. We invest heavily in careers – we want to develop
our next group of country directors, R&D directors, and partnership
leaders. In their first year, our program associates lead 3-5 internal
consulting projects, such as:

District partner: Most program associates are
initially partnered with a local field director. Program associates are
immersed in One Acre’s operations and learn from their local counterpart
how to grow an operation of 20+ staff, serving 5,000-20,000 farmers. They
in turn also transfer management and computer skills to their counterpart.
By working hand-in-hand with country national staff in a regular field
operation, our program associates get a feel for operations in the field.
New operation creation: A program associate in
Kenya created and manages the One Acre Fund Customer Engagement team,
which is tasked with fielding error claims from farmers, investigating
claims, and solving them fairly. Started in 2012 with one part-time employee,
the Customer Engagement team has grown rapidly to seven full-time staff
members. The team investigated and resolved more than 3,000 cases in 2013.

Impact innovation: A program associate designed
several configurations of a harvest storage product and farmer training,
and tried it with a few hundred farmers. The most successful trial
demonstrated an increase in harvest profits by more than 10%. The
following year, the product was sold to 40,000 farmers.
Growth innovation: A staffer designed a new viral
marketing initiative. She identified our best and most enthusiastic
farmers, and turned them into volunteer “replication agents” who
are empowered to recruit new groups of farmers. Our staff person designed
the trial protocols, trained 10 field staff to test the idea, and observed
the trial in-field, resulting in 25% higher client enrollment. This
program was subsequently rolled out to 200 field sites and became the
foundation of our current farmer recruitment model.

As staff grow into a program manager role, our
strongest performers take leadership over a relatively independent pilot,
country, or department within the One Acre Fund network, while earning a
significant and sustainable salary increase. Examples includes:

Government partnerships development: One Acre
Fund receives frequent requests from African governments to jointly
implement nationwide agricultural training, fertilizer distribution
programs, and credit programs. A program manager took the lead in setting
up our newest government partnership operation, initially to pilot one
project. Within a year, this operation had 50 staff and is likely to at
least quadruple in the coming two years, to hopefully 2-3 nationwide
partnerships.
Department leadership opportunities: In their
second year of service, top performing program staffers are often given
the responsibility of running an internal One Acre Fund department like
“Scale Innovations.” This department runs dozens of
test-and-control trials with 10,000+ farmers that radically tweak our program
model, with the goal of significantly increasing our scalability.
New markets: One Acre Fund has ambitious plans to
launch one new country per year. In 2011, a program manager moved to
Burundi to direct field operations for an initial 400-farmer pilot. Three
years later, One Acre Fund’s Burundi operation serves 21,000 farmers with
110 staff.

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. Because of our rapid growth, we constantly have new
high-level roles opening up and opportunities in many functions. This results
in fast career growth for our staff.

Qualifications

We are seeking exceptional 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:

Strong work experiences. Examples include a demanding
professional work experience, or successful entrepreneurial experience
(e.g. starting a field program in a developing country, leading a
conference, starting a business, solid Peace Corps accomplishments).
Leadership experience at work, or outside of
work.
Top-performing undergraduate background (include
GPA and test scores on your resume).
Humility. We are looking for passionate
professionals who combine strong leadership skills with good humor,
patience, and a humble approach to service to join our growing family of
leaders.
A willingness to commit to living in rural areas
of East Africa 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.
Ability to cook / laugh – desirable.
Language: English required in Kenya, Ethiopia,
Malawi, and Tanzania, and French required in Rwanda and Burundi. French
and Swahili-speakers are particularly encouraged to apply.

Preferred Start Date

Flexible

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

How to apply

Complete this form (http://myjotform.com/form/40471746260553). You
will be prompted to submit your CV and cover letter. You may also be asked to
submit work samples for some positions. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
(RPCVs), please submit a copy of your Description of Service (DOS) in the
appropriate section.