Program Manager - Rwanda

Salary: Modest, however, raises come quickly quickly for strong performers.
Education: Bachelor (BA, BS, etc.)
Location: Bungoma, Kenya
Posted by: One Acre Fund
Type: Full time
Language(s): English, French
Job posted on: October 11, 2010
Area of Focus: Economic Development, Farming and Agriculture, Microcredit, Poverty and Hunger, Rural Issues
Sector: Nonprofit
Last day to apply: December 10, 2010
Last updated: October 11, 2010
Organization Description
One Acre Fund is a start-up initiative in Kenya and Rwanda which works with persistently hungry farm families. Instead of giving handouts to families, One Acre invests in farm families to generate a permanent gain in farm income. Our "investment bundle" includes education, financing, inputs, and export market access. Our program is designed to be usable by the extreme poor, and generates a lasting, 100%+ gain in farm income.

We have been operating since January 2006, and we currently serve 30,000 farm families (120,000 children). Our target is to change the lives of 50,000 families (200,000 children) within 18 more months, scaling at a 50-100% annual growth rate thereafter. One Acre Fund is one of the most externally-validated social start-ups of 2006, winning grants from the highly competitive Echoing Green, Draper Richards and Skoll Foundations, and first place wins at the Stanford and Yale social venture competitions. 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% make 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.
* No ego or drama. We are all stable
people who are fun to be around. We
are looking for others that combine
strong leadership skills with a humble
approach to service
* English required.
* Ability to cook/ laugh/ extraordinary
patience - all desirable

** PLEASE DO NOT APPLY FOR
PROGRAM MANAGER, IF YOU DO
NOT FIT THESE CRITERIA. WE HAVE
OTHER OPEN JOB POSTINGS
AVAILABLE, SUCH AS PROGRAM
ASSOCIATE. **

To Apply:

Attach and email cover letter and resume to jobs@oneacrefund.org (Subject line: Program Manager Search + name of the site that referred you)

More information can be found at www.oneacrefund.org

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