Program Manager (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 130,000 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 (Subject line: Program Manager Search + name of the site that referred you)