Job Opportunities at One Acre Fund

Wanted

Exceptional leaders with 3+ years’ work experience (Associate) or 5+ years' work experience (Manager) to dream up, trial, and scale new businesses to generate impact for rural families.

Job Location

Associate: Rural East Africa (current markets of operation include Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Malawi).

Manager: Most managers work in our rural offices. In limited instances, certain managers will be based in capital cities with extensive travel (50%).

Duration

Minimum 2 years commitment, full-time job.

Organization Description

More than 75% of the world's poor are smallholder farmers, representing the largest and most uniform group of poor people in the world. Serving farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania, One Acre Fund is a growing social enterprise that is innovating a new way of helping farm families to achieve their full potential. Instead of giving handouts, One Acre Fund invests in rural families to generate a permanent gain in income. We are growing quickly. Since 2006, we have grown to serve 400,000 farm families with more than 3,000 full-time field staff and we will serve 1 million farmers by 2020.  

Team and Job Description

The mission of the Impact Venture team is to dream up, trial, and scale new businesses to create positive impact for rural families. We invest in “moon shots” and other ambitious ideas to rapidly create impact for tens of millions of families. Examples of new businesses include:

• Retail Chains – we set up a chain of retail stores to sell impactful products to rural families. Retail fronts are a traditional, but effective means for marketing and selling goods to key populations of people.
• Seed Technology – improved seed varieties provide rural households with better returns than just about any other technology. We are running large scale, innovative marketing campaigns at the regional level to raise adoption of the best available seeds on the market. We are also investing in supply side opportunities to increase the quantity of seeds available to farmers.
• Government Services – we are partners with local, regional and national governments to improve the quality and impact of government services for rural families. These partnerships allow us to help deliver critical information and services to hundreds of thousands of families.
• Product Design – we are designing, prototyping, trialing, and producing new products for rural families. Initial categories of products include agricultural tools and household utility products.

We are seeking exceptional individuals to join this early-stage team to help us scale early stage ventures and dream up new opportunities. In general, team members focus on a single business at a time. We try to match team members with their passions as best as possible. Responsibilities for qualified candidates will include:

• Direct Trials and Support Rapid Scale to a Regional or National level. New team members are expected to own key operational functions and run trials to test key questions to help us create businesses which can generate significant impact and grow at a rapid pace. Example projects include:
• – an Associate on the Impact Venture team opened a series of stores in rural communities to sell key goods and services. The Associate hired and managed a growing team to run the operation, developed operational strategies to select store locations and organize store operations, and worked with global teams to develop inventory and cash tracking processes.
• – a Manager hired a team of 75 people to run a series of marketing trials to promote use of improved seed. Improved seed is proven to significantly increase yields at very little added cost. The Manager designed our messaging strategy and marketing materials and established partnerships with dozens of local private businesses to increase sales of improved seed in communities with very low adoption levels.
• – an Associate is running trials to test the efficacy of different mobile tools, from two-way SMS to IVR to mobile games. Our goal is to use these mobile tools to support our different business units to communicate with existing and prospective clients.
• Dream Big and Operationlize New Ideas – identify innovations to enhance new business units and contribute to organizational strategy in identifying new opportunities to pursue. Team members are expected to prioritize new ideas and figure out how to translate the best ideas into live trials and operations.
• Build and Manage a Team – hire, develop, and lead a team to effectively execute in the field. To grow fast, Associate and Managers need to be capable of hiring and leading large teams in short periods of time.
• Coordinate with External Partners – manage relationships with key partners who are relevant to our work. Partners could include executives at seed companies, representatives from solar companies, key officials in government ministries, etc.

Qualifications

We are seeking ambitious young 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:

• 3 – 6+ years of work experience.
• Demonstrated passion for, and preferably experience in, cultivating and developing new ideas and opportunities. We want people who are entrepreneurs at heart.
• Leadership experience at work, or outside of work
• Top-performing academic background.
• Independence and ownership. Associate and Managers will be expected to operate and grow operations with moderate oversight. We want team members who thrive with a lot of independence.
• Humility. We are looking for passionate professionals who combine strong leadership skills with good humor, patience, and a humble approach to service.
• A willingness to commit to living in rural areas of East Africa. The ideal candidate will have at least one year demonstrated experience working in the developing world, although this is not a strict requirement.
• Ability to cook / laugh – desirable.
• Language: English required.

Preferred Start Date

Flexible

Sponsor International Candidates 

Yes

East Africans strongly encouraged to apply.

go to method of application »

Wanted

Exceptional professionals with 4+ years of work experience to help manage and lead the People Division in Kenya, One Acre Fund’s largest country of operation. You’ll be the key deputy in overseeing the strategy and implementation of all things ‘team’ for a fast-growing program of 2,000+ employees. Candidates should have experience in HR (ideally in East Africa) and in the leadership of large teams, demonstrate exceptional people management skills, and know how to craft and communicate vision.

Job Location

Kakamega, Kenya

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 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 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

Commensurate with experience

Benefits

Health insurance, room and board, transport, immunizations

Sponsor International Candidates 

Yes

go to method of application »

Wanted

Early-career professionals with 2-5+ years work experience to join our Operations team in a position that combines both field and management experience in Kenya. 

Job Location

Kakamega, Kenya  (English required)

Duration

Minimum 2 years commitment, full-time job.

 

Job Description

One Acre Fund’s Kenya program grows in scope and complexity each year. We add new products, services, and input distributions; new ways of collecting repayment and enrolling clients; and new policies and procedures to incentivize and enforce good performance. Our program size roughly triples every two years.

The Operations Division – a collection of back-office functions including Logistics, Customer Engagement, Orders, Collections, Print, and Internal Investigations – works to (re)design and execute the processes necessary to keep up with program change, growth, and innovation. We live on the edge of what’s possible, and accept significant executional risk and technical debt to increase the total amount of social good that we produce, through more impact per client and more total clients. The result is a fast-paced, constantly evolving and growing work environment. We seek individuals who are excited by BIG challenges and comfortable building structure where we haven’t yet placed it.

We place a heavy emphasis on both execution and staff growth and development. We strive to create a safe learning environment that is forgiving of internal mistakes, with safety mechanisms to catch any errors before they ripple outside of our division. Simultaneously, we offer stretch-projects to all staff because we believe that growth comes through practice. We seek team members who are eager to embrace both of these important priorities.  

As the Kenya Operations Associate/Manager, your duties will include:

• Supporting one or more teams within the operations division.
• Mentoring and developing key team leaders.
• Working closely with our Field Program and Innovations teams to support program impact assessments – For each proposed programmatic change, what existing processes will shift and what additional short and long-term support is needed.
• Managing operations projects – Some examples include:
  • Identifying, codifying, and documenting mature processes – How we execute the routine stuff to run our program, like servicing product warranties, allocating field staff to operational geographies, disbursing refunds, issuing client repayment incentives, etc. etc. etc.
  • Formalizing QC processes and checklists to deskill our entry-level roles.
  • Supporting the development and maintenance of a simple country-wide “Service Catalog” that outlines the services each One Acre Fund team offers.
• Managing operations innovations – some examples include:
  • Migrating existing paper processes to tablets, speeding the flow of data from field to office and back.
  • Professionalizing our Customer Service team’s call routing, call volume projections, case tracking, and associated reporting.
  • Preparing for “rolling” program enrollment and deliveries if and as we move away from a highly seasonal program.
• Building bridges between our Field Program leadership and our back-office.
• Humbly and cheerfully doing whatever unexpected work is necessary to keep the ship afloat and strengthen it against future unexpected icebergs.

 

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests heavily 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.

 

Qualifications

We are seeking exceptional professionals with 2-5+ years of work experience. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply: 

• Humble, clear, deft verbal and written communicator; comfortable saying “no” and making complicated ideas simple for a wide range of audiences
• Calm, positive, and collaborative under fire
• Demonstrated passion for designing and re-engineering operational processes
• STEM background a strong plus
• A willingness to live outside of a capital city, close to our customers, 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; Swahili-speakers are particularly encouraged to apply.

 

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible.

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

East Africans strongly encourage to apply.

go to method of application »

Wanted

Exceptional professionals with 3+ years work experience to serve in a career–track position that combines financial and operational analysis with management experience in Africa. 

Job Location

Muramvya, Burundi; Nairobi, Kenya; Iringa, Tanzania; Kigali, Rwanda

Duration

Minimum 2 years commitment, full-time job

 

Job Description

The Finance – Advisory Services (FAS) team is made up of in country associates that are the trusted advisors to country leadership teams in the area of financial sustainability. Taking vast amounts of financial intelligence from budgets, spending patterns and projected work plans, FAS provides concise, actionable advice around how to allocate scarce resources to best achieve the country’s scale and impact goals. Your primary task will be to meet monthly with country leadership to understand spending to budget and provide a brilliantly simple recap of gaps, successes and recommended action plans. In addition, you will assist department heads in analyzing financial data to determine task specific action plans around key deliverables such as pricing, total compensation and key expense line items (such as transportation and office stocking).

As a young organization, we are ready to hand over significant responsibility for specific, well-defined strategic initiatives as well as day-to-day management of our financial systems. As such, we are seeking an exceptional professional with 3+ years work experience, and a long-term career interest in international development. They will serve in a career-track position that combines financial and operational analysis with management experience in Africa.

 

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

Typical tasks will include:

• Supporting Country Leadership to Determine Strategy. Using the financial intelligence gained in the above priorities, the FAS Associate will work with the country leadership to ensure that a solid strategic plan is in place to meet all Impact and Scale goals.

• Annual Budget Facilitator and Champion. With support from the rest of the Finance team, the FAS Associate will spearhead the annual budgeting process, including tools training, workshop facilitation with department heads and review of the compiled budgets.

• Manage and Mentor Staff. To support the above mentioned activities, you will recruit, manage and develop a small team (one to five) of experienced staff that will assist with your analysis and communications goals.

• Financial Analysis and Driver of Sustainability. The FAS Associate is tasked with pushing the country towards sustainability; you will provide reports on district, country and organization wide spending to budget performance, and will oversee the measurement of Financial KPI’s, ensuring appropriate action.  The Associate will provide analysis and recommendations for improved efficiency, cost effectiveness and product pricing.

 

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 looking for truly extraordinary candidates that will help take our organization to the next levels of impact and scale. This is a competitive posting for a career-track role with minimum initial commitment of two years. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• 3+ years work experiences.  Examples include a demanding professional work experience in a finance function (e.g. SME management consulting, an entrepreneurial role, working as a business or finance analyst).
• Confidence with numbers and providing quick, insightful analyses of the stories behind the numbers.
• Ability to clearly communicate in a logical and structured way to an audience with widely varying levels of expertise and interests.
• Ability and drive to work independently, while effectively prioritizing potentially conflicting demands from various teams.
• Outstanding interpersonal skills, including both verbal and written communications.
• Experience with process design and implementation.
• Leadership experience at work, or outside of work, particularly in a matrix based organization.
• Top-performing undergraduate background.
• A willingness to commit to living in rural areas of East Africa for at least two years – this is a long-term, career-track position with potential to grow into an East African or US-based management 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.

 

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

East Africans strongly encourage to apply

go to method of application »

Wanted

Exceptional professionals with 2+ years of work experience for a role that combines rigorous data analysis, expertise on the design of trials for innovative products and services for smallholder farmers, and significant staff mentorship.

Job Location

Kakamega, Kenya

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 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 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

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

East Africans are strongly encouraged to apply

go to method of application »

Wanted

Exceptional professional with 2-5+ years of experience and a demonstrated passion for agricultural development. 

Job Location

Rubengera, Rwanda

Duration

Minimum 2 years commitment, full-time job.

  

Job Description

One Acre Fund relies on its Agriculture Innovations team to find the most impactful agricultural practices and products for farmers. Every season we run both station trials and farmer trials to inform our program decisions. Great innovation comes from excellent background research, a true understanding of our client base, excellent trial implementation, and a strong integration process that allows us to translate trial results into our full program.

The Product Innovation & Exploration Associate/Manager will be based in rural Rwanda. S/he will be responsible for a subset of the following:

• Innovation Exploration
  • Conduct desk research & literature reviews on intervention options, monitor developments in relevant research, and synthesize knowledge and evidence to develop trial design recommendations and hypotheses.
  • Explore impact opportunities in key rural development sectors like Energy, Health & Nutrition, Livestock, Agroforestry, Climate Change Adaptation, etc.
  • Conduct farmer-facing research. Use surveys and focus groups to discover and prioritize interventions to impact farmer income, soil health, or family health.
  • Develop framework for systematic out-sight and organizational learning.
  • Liaise with Rwandan research organizations (Government, Universities) and international research institutes to advance mutual learning.
• Staff Mentorship
  • Support all staff working on innovation & exploration team to develop technical knowledge, creative solution identification, data analysis capacity, and leadership and management skills.
  • Provide basic technical training to non-field staff on an ass-needed basis.
• Technical Guidance
  • Provide ad-hoc technical advice and guidance the impact division (Innovations + M&E), as well as to other departments like government services, field operations, etc.
  • Support Ag Extension work by reviewing & improving trainings disseminated to 200,000+ farm families each year. Develop new training materials based on desk research and trials, as needed.

 

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 an exceptional professional with 2-5 years of work experience and ideally a demonstrated passion for international and agricultural development. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Experience in rural development, especially in smallholder tropical agriculture or rural economics.
• Creative problem-solving and/or product development. Demanding professional work experience or successful entrepreneurial experience can be applicable.
• Leadership experience within or outside of work.
• Top-performing undergraduate background.
• Masters of Science in a field related to Agriculture or Economics preferred.
• Strong data analysis skills including Excel and STATA / R.
• 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. Kinyarwanda preferred.

 

Preferred Start Date

Immediate

 

Compensation

Commensurate with experience.

 

Benefits

Health insurance, immunizations, flight, room and board.

 

Sponsor International Candidates 

Yes

Kinyarwanda speakers encouraged to apply.