Socialnetlink myAgro is hiring a Country Director
About this Role
Our recruitment for a Country Director, Senegal was put on hold while we recruited for and on-boarded our new VP of Sales, but we are now back in search of a smart, hardworking and fun person to join our incredible team as part of our 2020 push towards our North Star. We’re moving from scrappy start-up to lean & scaling as we build out our team to help myAgro scale to 1 million farmers by 2025. Be part of this founding team that gets myAgro to where few organizations have gone before: 1 million smallholder farmers eating and earning more thanks to your (and their) hard work. We need leaders who love getting mud on their boots while they visit farmers’ fields, and while thinking strategically on how to improve execution at a scale of 500, 1000 and 2000 village entrepreneurs. We need leaders who think coaching and team development is a core function of their role and love to see their people succeed in new & challenging ways. We need experienced professionals who will help lead myAgro’s strategy and team to greater heights of impact and scale. In a country with major climate change effects, poor network connectivity, spotty electricity and relatively low levels of infrastructure and agricultural industry, this is not going to be easy. That’s why we need you. Your mission We’re looking for a commander in chief for our operations in Senegal. Someone to lead a smart and savvy team of operations and technical experts. Your daily mission is to build the team, processes, and systems at scale to deliver operational excellence throughout our organization. Lead country-wide operations to drive world-class team performance. You will oversee the two most important ingredients of success: people and purse. You will guide the people ops team to implement the systems to manage human resources, as well as the hiring, retention and development of the myAgro team on the ground. You are in the field at least once every week observing, learning and sharing feedback to your top field lieutenants. Your collaborative management style will enable you to help team members to feel valued and to encourage each of them to learn, grow, and thrive in their work. In addition to your team, you will oversee finances & financial reporting for the country program. Develop alliances. You will develop a rock-solid partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture. You will also build new relationships with institutional funders and other agricultural stakeholders in the country. You will collaborate with our partners (CRS, Stromme, Aga Khan) and develop new strategic saving group partners thoughtfully and in alignment with myAgro’s goals.
Promote myAgro.
Maintain strong relationships with leaders in government, NGOs and donors. Raise myAgro’s visibility at strategic conferences and meetings and identify opportunities to showcase myAgro’s work nationally and globally. Increase earned revenue: myAgro has an awesome development team that secures philanthropic funds countries need to expand. You’ll have full focus to drive strategy for the field team to increase earned revenue (sales!) to lower the philanthropy needed to serve the same region each year. In 2020 each country will bring in more close to $2 million in earned revenue. You may be asked to attend a call or a meeting to help get a deal but you won’t be tasked with writing proposals, creating budgets and milestones to meet donor demand. This is not that kind of country director role, and myAgro is not that kind of nonprofit. We stay focused and work hard on earning as much as we can from the people we serve: farmers. Lead with integrity. As the leader of our organizational culture in country, you will create a positive and productive workplace. One that values hard work, feedback, continuous learning, inclusion and commitment to our work. Your background African Leadership. You have at least 10 years’ experience leading systemic change, managing people, budgets and working in global companies or international organizations. Ideally, you’ve lived and worked in Francophone West Africa, preferably Mali or Senegal. Management creds. You have managed teams of 200+ and annual budgets of $2 million+. You are able to inspire a shared vision for the myAgro team. You know how to motivate and guide people. You create buy-in and team solidarity, while navigating the challenges of managing a large and diverse workforce. A strategist. You are laser focused and a clear decision maker. You have a strong interest in private-sector approaches to evelopment and a proven ability to produce results. You are able to break goals into manageable objectives and to work with a team to meet Key Performance Indicators. Natural at Sales. You are able to solicit and provide real feedback to the field team on marketing strategy, payment strategies and execution of key activities in the field.
You do this with confidence, either based on data that you’re able to get in a lean manner or through your experience scaling and selling new products direct to customers. You are decisive and know when to pivot a failing strategy and when to dig in and focus on improved execution through training & coaching. Connector. You are able to build and sustain relationships with leaders in the Ministry of Agriculture and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). You are able to spot new talent, help break down silos and connect people to each other to solve problems. Agriculture experience preferred. You don’t have to have agricultural experience, but should demonstrate your passion for myAgro’s model. Get our model. myAgro is a hybrid model. We’re a nonprofit organization with a business minded approach. We use business practices to achieve social goals. Candidates with for-profit and nonprofit experience preferred. Live our values. You can thrive in our culture if you can demonstrate transparency, integrity, a bias towards action, innovation & a focus on solution-solving along with a natural love of learning and curiosity.
To apply: submit your application online to applications@myagro.org
About myAgro myAgro helps farmers move out of poverty: we do this with a simple approach. We help farmers manage their cash flow better – at harvest time when farmers have more cash, they can lock away their funds for seeds and fertilizer for the next season. They pay using their mobile phone (or mobile money in Tanzania) and myAgro delivers the inputs they’ve paid for before it rains and provides technical training so farmers know how to use the inputs efficiently.
This leads to 50% more food and 50% more income per farm. To date myAgro serves 46,000 farmers and will scale to 1 million farmers by 2025. The award-winning team has received recognition from Skoll Foundation, Echoing Green, World Bank, Bill Gates and more. myAgro provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, marital/parental status, national origin, age, disability, political opinion, social status, veteran status, and genetics. myAgro complies with all applicable federal, provincial and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment Women are strongly encouraged to apply! Start date: August or September Apply by: application deadline is June 19, 2020
