One Acre Fund Program Manager job in Rwanda/Kenya

Wanted
Mid-career professionals with 4 – 6 years work experience for a role that combines both field and management experience in Africa.

Job Location
Rural Rwanda (French required), or Rural Kenya (English required).

Duration
Minimum 2 years commitment, full-time job.

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 growing social enterprise in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania that is innovating a new way of helping farm families to achieve their full potential. Instead of giving handouts, One Acre Fund invests in farmers to generate a permanent gain in farm income. We provide farmers with a "service bundle" that includes education, finance, seed and fertilizer, and market facilitation. Our program is proven impactful – every year, we weigh thousands of harvests and measure 50-100% average gain in farm income per acre. We have laser-like focus on generating better lives for the people that we serve.

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. Example projects include:

• 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 fifty staff and is likely to at least quadruple in the coming two years, to hopefully 2-3 nationwide partnerships.
• Sweet potato vine production: One Acre Fund farmers needed high-quality sweet potato vines in the 2013 season to avoid crop loss due to a maize disease.  When these vines were unavailable in the quantity necessary, a program manager started a sweet potato multiplication farm to ensure all farmers received quality inputs on time.  This included designing farm operations, hiring staff, negotiating contracts, coordinating logistics and managing more than 600 seasonal employees.
• 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.
• Program associate management: Program managers directly manage 1-3 program associates and 10-100 local staff.  Managers invest in the growth of their direct reports through frequent project feedback, skills-building and mentorship.

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.

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
We are seeking exceptional professionals with 4-6 years of work experience with increasing responsibility, 2-3 years of direct management experience, and ideally a demonstrated passion for international development.  Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Ability to cook/ laugh/ extraordinary patience - all desirable.
• Language: English required in Kenya, and French required in Rwanda. French-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

To Apply
Complete this form. 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.

East Africans are strongly encouraged to apply.