Position: Tanzania Product Innovations Lead
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
Product Innovations Department Overview
The Product Innovations (PI) Lead will sit with the Impact Division, the driving force behind improving One Acre Fund’s programs, products, and services to farmers. Impact aims to reduce the risk of farmer investments and offer proven, impactful products. Within that, Product Innovations drives One Acre Fund towards continual growth by researching and trialing agricultural products, non-agricultural products, and trainings. PI identifies products, trainings, and strategies with high impact that solve the fundamental challenges that Tanzanian farmers face. The department works to maximize adoption or adherence and minimize logistical complications in an effort to reach as many farmers as possible with high impact products.
Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
- Team Management of 25+ Department Staff
- Directly manage department execution lead (JG5) and 1-2 JG3 or JG4 team members
- Write development and promotion plans for all direct reports within 1 month of reviews
- Ensure all permanent Product Innovations department staff receive bi-annual reviews and are on development plans within 1 month of reviews, with monthly reviews of plans in between bi-annual reviews
- Institute and monitor campaigns or protocols to ensure high team sustainability and efficacy
- Plan bi-annual team celebrations and encourage celebration in regular team culture
- Recommend Product Strategy to Maximize Farmer Impact through Add On Products
- Design strategy for key product workstreams (solar, beans, etc.)
- Product glidepath updated annually for 5 year pan
- Set add on impact annual KPIs and create strategy for meeting targets
- Define “5 Big Bets” for prioritization each season
- Keep product pipeline, strategy calendar, and Product Innovations dashboard up to date
- Oversee Product Trials
- Ensure project calendars are up to date at the team and country level
- Collect monthly risk assessments from project leads and ensure critical risks are well mitigated
- Consider farmers first in all projects, checking that farmer needs and perceptions have been fully integrated
- Communicate project wins and risks to country leadership (direct manager and when applicable, Steer Co)
- Manage 1-3 projects or 1 phase while actively building succession plan to delegate these projects
- Department Planning
- Recommend highest efficiency staffing structure for project priorities
- Budget overhead and staffing for financial year to most efficiently drive SROI within budget limit
- Oversee Budget Variance Analysis lead to ensure any monthly budget variance is well understood and adjusted for in future months
- Ensure regular planning coordination meetings with key departments, such as Logistics and Field Ops
- OKR contribution and tracking
- Lead Product Innovations department OKR drafting with team, aligning with global, country, and division
- Track OKR progress and adjust team priorities accordingly
- Team Management Administration
- PI weekly meetings
- Holiday tracking
- Materials controls
- Ensure deadlines for cross-department requests are met by Product Innovations (HR surveys)
- Global Coordination
- Monthly contributions to Impact Digest
- Quarterly updates to Impact Team Project Index
- Update global impact tools that feed into General Partner meetings, such as SROI projections
- Annual preparation of materials for country’s formal reporting on add on impact calculations
Career Growth and Development
One Acre Fund invests 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
- Specific qualifications include, but are not limited to:
- Minimum 2 year commitment, full-time job
- Graduate of 4-year university (mandatory)
- Graduate degree (preferred)
- Familiarity and experience with running statistical models, such as multi-variate regression
- Experience with statistical software (R or Stata)
- Personal or professional experience with agronomy and rural livelihoods (preferred)
- 6+ years practical experience working on project and team management, including preferred experience with:
- Team management
- Leading team strategy
- Managing project calendars
- Prioritizing and balancing multiple projects and teams at once
- Writing research plans based on objectives including survey data collection, data analysis leading to specific recommendations, and report writing
- Fluency in Microsoft Excel and Word
- Comfort and sensitivity working in a multicultural environment that spans six countries and two continents
- Proven ability to manage, teach, and mentor others
- Excellent ability to communicate clearly both verbally and in writing
- Integrity in use of One Acre Fund resources
- Humility: Open to feedback, willing to admit mistakes and learn from them
- Fluent Business and Conversational EnglishAbility to live and work in Iringa and/or Mbeya regions
Preferred Start Date
As soon as possible
Job Location
Iringa, Tanzania
Compensation
Commensurate with experience
Duration
Full-time job
Benefits
Health insurance, paid time off
