Career Opportunities at One Acre Fund - 3 Positions

Duration

Minimum 2-year commitment, full-time job

Job Description 

One Acre Fund is growing quickly, and we plan to at least quadruple our farmer impact in the next five years. Program Associates play a major role in driving that growth and ensuring that this growth is stable and systematic – while also adding major innovations and improvements to our program quality. This offers Program Associates a strong career opportunity: the ability to learn from a successful field operation, contribute to aggressive growth, and also make improvements to our program.

We are currently seeking Program Associates for a variety of teams within One Acre Fund, including: 

Operations:

Our country operation teams face a classic leadership and management challenge: how to keep a large country operation growing at 40-75% per year while also making significant improvements to our operating model. Program Associates first learn from our organization’s deep knowledge on scaling rural field programs; then, they are challenged to find new ways to stretch, grow faster, and increase our quality of service.

• Field operations staff focus on farmer-facing services. They start as generalists, with overall responsibility for executing our program in a region. Over time, they can continue to rise as a general leader, possibly growing to manage an entire country’s field operation. Or they may specialize, for example, in the creation and roll-out of staff development training for hundreds or even 1,000+ team members.

• Support operations staff build the infrastructure required for growth. These teams proactively eliminate barriers to scale in a diverse range of areas – processing millions of farmer payments, communicating to farmers via tens of millions of SMS, hiring hundreds of new staff per year, and physically moving 20,000+ tons of farm inputs to thousands of drop sites. Program Associates also make steady improvements to accelerate growth – for example, setting up mobile money integration for a country.

Innovations:

Our Innovations teams discover new ideas for our programs and conduct dozens of trials to test these ideas. As an organization, we constantly seek to learn and improve, and our Innovations teams lead the way.

• Product Innovations staff improve our core agricultural products or run new experiments in energy and health products. The ideas they discover may eventually scale to hundreds of thousands of households. Product Innovations staff design trials, execute trials together with thousands of farmers, synthesize trial data, and make constant revisions to the product offering. For example, our Product Innovations team is currently testing delivery of live chickens and preparing the product for full-scale rollout. One Acre Fund is also increasingly delving into energy and health, and we are currently one of the largest sellers of solar lights in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Scale Innovations staff seek to improve our core operating model. By running trials with tens of thousands of farmers, they analyze targeted questions such as: does moving from a group liability loan to an individual liability loan improve repayment and customer satisfaction? Or they might investigate more radical ideas, such as setting up physical One Acre Fund shops to see if there are more efficient ways to deliver high-quality service to farmers. They try variations on our program with the goal of improving our scalability, impact, and financial sustainability.

On a day-to-day basis, nearly all roles involve a mix of activities:

• Understanding and solving problems: observing field operations, meeting with leaders of our field staff , running surveys, conducting desk research, analyzing KPIs, etc. Then creating simple and lasting solutions to complex problems.
• Planning and executing large projects: identifying clear goals, creating project calendars, designing workflows, creating field tools and talking points, designing incentive systems and understanding stakeholders, following up and monitoring project execution in the field, etc.
• Building teams: hiring staff using One Acre Fund’s unique “experiential hiring” system, mentoring key deputies, and steadily handing off responsibility to your team as you build it.
• Communicating with other teams: working in coordination with One Acre Fund’s other teams on the ground to execute a smooth customer experience in the simplest way possible.

One Acre Fund has deep operational experience running rural field programs at a scale of 1,000+ full-time staff per country. Program Associates benefit from this past experience, quickly building their skill-set through immersion in our operating environment. At the same time, the main role of Program Associates is to accelerate growth and to constantly stretch and improve our operations. This presents an excellent career opportunity to both learn from One Acre Fund’s accumulated experience and constantly improve and enable 40%+ program growth per year.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager and a global support team will commit 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.

Qualifications

We are seeking exceptional professionals with 2 to 5+ years of work experience, and a demonstrated long-term passion for international development. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Strong work experiences. Examples include a demanding professional work experience, or successful entrepreneurial experience, e.g. starting a field program in a developing country, leading a conference, starting a business, solid Volunteer Service Organization accomplishments (VSO, Peace Corps, JICA, etc).
• Leadership experience at work, or outside of work.
• Top-performing undergraduate background (include final grade/marks/GPA).
• 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.
• A willingness to commit to living in rural areas of East Africa for at least two years – this is a long-term, career-track role. The ideal candidate will have at least one year demonstrated experience working in the developing world, although this is not a strict requirement.
• Language: English required in all locations. French required for Burundi placement. Other notable and useful languages are Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Chichewa, Amharic. 

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, flights, housing

Sponsor International Candidates 

Yes

East Africans strongly encouraged to apply.

go to method of application »

Duration

Minimum 2-year commitment for full-time career role

Job Description

One Acre Fund began in Kenya and it is now one of our largest and fastest-growing countries of operation. Our vision for 2030 is to end hunger in Kenya and provide a pathway to prosperity for every farm family in the nation. One Acre Fund Kenya is transitioning from a start-up to a mature operation – and we need additional high performing staff members to continue our strong growth trajectory. Working with our Kenya team presents the opportunity to build upon our strong operational foundations and explore new ways to impact our well-established network of hundreds of thousands of farm families. The work of the People Division Deputy would include, but not be limited to:

1. Strategy & Vision
   • Together with the division director, set and steer course for the 5-15-year vision.
   • Ensure department annual plans align with long-term vision and targets.
   • Measure progress against goals, regularly report on progress, hold the team accountable to prioritizing and delivering results in key strategic areas.
   • Prepare our people departments to scale rapidly, allowing OAF deliver rural services to 500,000 clients through 3,000 staff members by 2020.
   • Hold Kenya program accountable to meet career promises to all staff – meaningful work, career growth and fair compensation.
2. Communication
   • Proactively and effectively communicate up to the division director and country leadership, down to departments, across to other sets of leaders.
   • Ensure People Departments are collaborating effectively with individuals, teams and divisions outside of the people division. Set-up appropriate systems of communication to keep everyone moving together.
   • Participate in global people work and collaborate with other country programs.
3. Management & Training
   • Serve as direct or secondary management line to 1-3 key people departments in Kenya. These departments could include: Corporate Operations, Human Resources, Training, Recruitment, Analytics, and Infrastructure. Management will include oversight, weekly reporting meetings, performance reviews and development, strategic direction and support.
   • Personally lead training sessions for senior staff members.
4. Team & Culture
   • Serve as a leader and role model to the Kenya team at large. This should include a consistent demonstration of One Acre Fund core values, modeling a sustainable work/life balance, investing in the development of your team, and investment in team culture.
   • Keep the pulse on team feedback, concerns, and upcoming events that might be destabilizing.
   • Actively contingency plan and mitigate risk areas that could destabilize staff or operations.
5. Execution of Strategic Initiatives
   • Ensure that the People Division adheres to world-class standards of execution.
   • Set KPI’s and metrics to measure success.
   • Regularly solicit feedback from the wider team and other departments.
   • Spending and Budgeting
     • Participate, together with departments, in annual budgeting process; anticipate spending for the year based on annual plans.
     • Regularly review actual spending against planned spending. Keep all departments operating to maximum efficiency and within planned budget.
6. Outside & External

• Occasionally host key external visitors and donors to One Acre Fund.
• Research and understand key best practices in functional work areas at other organizations.
• Think strategically about potential partnerships and learning opportunities from other organizations.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager and a global support team will commit 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.

Qualifications

We are seeking an exceptional professional with 4+ years of work experience a demonstrated passion for international development. Candidates fitting the following profile are strongly encouraged to apply:

• HR/Talent management experience.
• Strong people management experience (at least 3 years of managing a team of highly skilled workers).
• Strong leadership experiences with the demonstrated ability to lead a team to accomplish its goals.
• High emotional intelligence: Self-regulation and empathy in particular.
• A true team player: You’ll be willing to do whatever it takes to help the Kenya team.
• Excellent judgment in sensitive people issues, management skills, creative problem solving.
• Strong communication skills, both written and oral.
• 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.
• A willingness to commit to living in rural areas of East Africa for at least two years – this is a long-term, career-track role. The ideal candidate will have at least one year of demonstrated experience working in the developing world, although this is not a strict requirement.
• Language: English required. Swahili-speakers strongly preferred.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible, although flexible for the right candidate

Compensation

We offer a modest starting salary that affords a high quality of life in our areas of operation. This is a career-track role with performance-based raises and the ability to expand responsibilities over time.

Benefits

Health insurance, immunizations, flights, housing.

Sponsor International Candidates

Yes

East Africans are strongly encouraged to apply

go to method of application »

Duration

Minimum 2-year commitment, full-time job

Job Description

One Acre Fund is growing quickly, and we plan to at least quadruple our farmer impact in the next five years. Our staff play a major role in driving that growth while adding major innovations and improvements to our program quality. This offers staff members a strong career opportunity: the ability to learn from a successful field operation, contribute to aggressive growth, and also make improvements to our program.

We are currently seeking an Analyst on the Product Innovations team in Kenya. This team works to discover new ideas for our programs and conducts dozens of trials to test them. We have a broad portfolio of many focus areas, including staple crops, new agricultural technologies, solar energy, livestock, market access, nutrition, and health. As an organization, we constantly seek to learn and improve, and our innovations teams lead the way, developing ideas that could potentially improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of households.

The Product Innovations Analyst role would include the following primary responsibilities: 

• Conducting rigorous statistical analyses of trials: analyzing data from complex trials that touch on many different topic areas and that utilize design principles such as randomization, propensity score matching, and other research methods.
• Translating complex data topics for diverse audiences: synthesizing and summarizing data and trial results such that they can be presented to diverse audiences and used effectively in decision-making.
• Supporting the design of rigorous research trials: advising on trial design decisions such as sample size and sampling method, selection of appropriate control groups, statistical power, and ensuring that trials can meet stated objectives and answer target questions.
• Advising on data quality improvements: providing guidance and input to our monitoring and evaluation team to improve data collection methods, developing tools and resources that can identify data quality problems, and implementing best practices for data accuracy.
• Staff mentorship: leading trainings for team members on data analysis and data fluency, developing and revising training materials and resources, and providing targeted mentorship to key staff to build their data analysis and trial design skills.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. Your manager and a global support team will commit 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.

Qualifications

We are seeking an exceptional professional with 2+ years of work experience and ideally a demonstrated passion for international development. Candidates fitting the following profile are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Strong work experiences. Examples include a demanding professional work experience, or successful entrepreneurial experience – for example, starting a field program in a developing country, leading a conference, starting a business, solid Volunteer Service Organization accomplishments (e.g., VSO, Peace Corps, JICA, etc.).
• Strong analytical and statistical background and experience, with a preference for experience with designing and implementing randomized controlled trials and using R for analysis.
• 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.
• A willingness to commit to living in rural areas of East Africa for at least two years – this is a long-term, career-track role. The ideal candidate will have at least one year demonstrated experience working in the developing world, although this is not a strict requirement.
• Language: English required in all locations. Knowledge of Swahili a plus.
• Ability to cook/laugh – desirable.

Preferred Start Date

ASAP

Compensation

We offer a modest starting salary that affords a high quality of life in our areas of operation. This is a career-track role with performance-based raises and the ability to expand responsibilities over time.

Benefits

Health insurance, immunizations, flights, housing.

Sponsor International Candidates 

Yes

East Africans are strongly encouraged to apply