Job Description
Devex is delighted to support Digital Green, a global development organization creating a world where farmers use technology and data to build prosperous communities, in identifying their Director, Program Strategy. This position will be based in the US but is remote and the individual may be based out of the following states: California, Nevada, Kansas, Washington D.C., Washington State, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland,New York or Texas. Travel is estimated to be 4-5 weeks a year.
Digital Green has embarked on an ambitious journey over the next three years to deepen as well as broaden its core offerings to improve smallholder farm productivity with the goal of identifying impactful and scalable tech enabled solutions for sustainable and resilient agriculture. Our strategy and theory of change now need to be coupled with the rigor to translate intention into concrete evidence based and actionable plans and user focused implementation.
The VP, Program Strategy will be in a critical position to lead the strong strategy function that will help realize the new strategy. S/he will be responsible for supporting with: (1) Strategic leadership – own the entire strategic development and refresh process; (2) Manage a cross-functional team to elevate the role of gender and climate in programs while ensuring alignment between strategy and programs; (3) Evidence and Learning – help DG be evidence driven and adhere to its’ value of always learning; (4) Thought leadership – advocate for DG and its’ learnings with partners and in external fora; and The VP, Program Strategy will report to VP, Strategy and Partnerships, manage a global strategy function and engage closely with the project and in-country staff to advance Digital Green’s mission.
Responsibilities:
Strategy Leadership
- Own the strategy process writ large, including leading strategy refreshes, periodic updates, and supporting research, framework development, modeling, forecasting, and tracking.
- Act as a thought partner and thought leader for staff across the organization, both ensuring internal insights are circulated and applied to our work and bringing in insights from peer organizations.
- Be a generative and creative thinker and a master of designing and refining processes that allow others to do the same. Simultaneously, be an advocate for prioritization, implementation excellence, and accountability to our goals and targets.
- Guide strategic efforts across cross-cutting programmatic domains, starting with gender, climate change, and working in alignment with the business development team. Co-own advocacy strategy alongside the Director of Communications and under the supervision of the VP, Strategy & Partnerships.
- Develop strong relationships with country leadership, strategy counterparts, and operations team members and ensure cross-organizational coordination and effectiveness to achieve the strategy.
- Provide the primary strategic and programmatic guidance to staff and consultants supporting new geographies or more minor engagements outside India, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
- Where multi-country projects exist, provide partnership and coordination support, in addition to managing staff that provide direct project management.
- Support strategic alignment with the product function ensuring new strategic directions are incorporated in product development and testing; and product insights inform strategy iterations.
- Assess opportunities for geographic expansion, support the establishment and strengthening of Kenya office and lead cross-country strategic global programs (as appropriate).
Management (Programs, Gender and Climate)
- Champion and model Digital Green’s ethos, including a farmer-first approach, strong local ownership, product co-creation, as well as bravery, transparency, and humility.
- Responsible for mainstreaming gender and climate into DG’s programs by guiding a team of domain experts;
- Guide the Head of Program Strategy Support responsible for working with country program and products teams to implement projects successful in alignment with strategy.
- Guide the Heads of Global Gender and Global Climate to seamlessly integrate to deepen impact. In particular, ensure integration of these cross-cutting dimensions with the growing Product Function.
- Oversee, guide and evaluate the work of Head of Program Strategy Support, and Heads of, Global Gender and Global Climate and other staff to support achievement of strategic aims, and to ensure a healthy, balanced work environment that brings out the best in staff.
- Develop and manage the Strategy team budget.
- Hire and manage strategic consultancies with firms or individuals, as needed and ensure effective oversight.
- As requested, manage specific donor or partner relationships.
Evidence and Learning
- Work in partnership with the global lead of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning to continuously improve monitoring, evaluation and learning against the strategy and incorporate gender & climate considerations in MEL plans.
- Ensure learnings are regularly gathered and reflected in ongoing and new program and product development.
- Co-own the processes and systems for internal learning and monitoring of progress, including periodic strategy updates (written, video), quarterly reviews, bi-annual or annual reviews.
Thought Leadership
- Effectively communicate the strategy. Partner with the Communications and Business Development departments to ensure overall alignment with strategy and contribute to the translation of our strategy into appropriate materials for external and internal audiences, including presentations and funding proposals.
- Represent Digital Green regularly in public speaking events, in writing (articles, blogs), and potentially work with internal and external partners to contribute to peer reviewed publications
- As requested, engage with members of the Board, develop content for updates.
- Develop strong relationships and knowledge of Digital Green partners. Where needed, represent Digital Green’s position in programmatic partner negotiations where escalated above the working level.
Qualifications
Our ideal candidate enjoys working at the forefront of cutting-edge technology in service of farmers across the world and comes with the following skills and experiences:
- Masters degree in international development, strategy, business, agriculture or relevant field of study.
- At least 10+ years of experience working in fields related to international development, strategic planning/ execution and program & partnership leadership.
- Content knowledge of Agtech sector, especially in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (India, Ethiopia, and Kenya preferred) with a keen understanding of gender and climate subject matter.
- Knowledge and experience in applying relevant MEL approaches for tracking results and informing programs based on data driven & evidence based insights.
- Experience managing a team of senior development professionals with strong coaching and mentoring skills; Someone who creates positive cross-organizational collaboration.
- Exposure to product development and experience working in alignment with product functions.
- Interest and experience in advocacy and representing learnings in external conferences, speaking events and webinars.
- Existing relationships and experience with development partnerships in Agricultural Technology, gender and climate preferred.
- Strong organizational, facilitation, verbal, and written communication skills. Ability to work effectively and with sensitivity across barriers such as language, culture, and distance.
- Excellent listening skills and empathy.
To be a successful as a member of the Digital Green team, you will also:
- Have a passion for our mission and a strong desire to impact an up-and-coming non-profit organization.
- Be an innovative and creative thinker – you are not afraid to try something new and inspire others to do so.
- Have a very high level of personal and professional integrity and trustworthiness.
- Have a strong work ethic, take initiative, and require minimal direction.
- Work well independently as well as part of a team.
