Kenya: Microfinance Partnerships Director

Private-sector style career development in a growing social enterprise
An excellent career development opportunity

Industry: Nonprofit/International Development
Function: Shape the emerging agricultural microfinance movement
Employer: One Acre Fund
Job Title: Microfinance Partnerships Director

Job Location: Nairobi preferred; major European city possible. Frequent world travel, particularly East and West Africa.

Duration: Minimum 2 years commitment, full-time job

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 growing NGO in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania that is innovating a new way of helping farm families to achieve their full potential. Instead of giving handouts, One Acre Fund 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 50-100% 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 eight years, we have grown to serve 180,000 farm families with more than 2000 full-time field staff. Our approach has won widespread validation, winning grants from The MasterCard Foundation and Gates Foundation.

Website: www.oneacrefund.org.

Job DescriptionThe global microfinance movement has thousands of institutions and is starting to explore how to serve farmers, who are the majority of the world’s poor. One Acre Fund is growing the largest network of smallholding farmers in Africa, and proving that loans to smallholder farmers can be commercially viable. We are challenging ourselves to think big, and to invest resources into figuring out how to help the microfinance movement more seriously consider serving the world’s farmers.

We are genuinely interested in helping to promote and shape the emerging agriculturalmicrofinance movement. The Microfinance Partnerships Manager will lead One Acre Fund’s work to help bring together other organizations with experience in agriculture microfinance. S/he will help form an association of these organizations, develop core principles, and develop structures to incentivize other organizations to enter agriculture microfinance.

Separately, s/he will explore the eventual possibility of operating partnerships between One Acre Fund and other organizations (most likely microfinance organizations, but could be other organizations that are interested in serving rural farmers at scale).

We are seeking an exceptional mid-career professional with microfinance/financial access experience (preferred) or other base-of-the-pyramid business experience to serve as Microfinance Partnerships Manager.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

The Microfinance Partnerships Manager will perform the following and other duties as assigned:

Build meaningful and genuine one-on-one relationships with worldwide microfinance leaders and other organizations interested in serving rural farmers at scale.

Travel frequently within East and West Africa in particularLeverage One Acre Fund’s existing relationships to discover new relationshipsBuild real relationships with some of the most effective organizations in the world

Help to build the overall agricultural finance movement.

Develop a multi-year strategy for movement-buildingPromote core principles that distinguish agriculture finance from the regular microfinance movement (e.g. asset finance, training, retail of seed and fertilizer)Potentially play a role in helping to consolidate an industry association

Explore the eventual possibility of operational partnerships.

Working closely with our core operating staff, help to determine partnership strategyWrite MOUs and take the lead on communicating with the partnerContinue to be involved strategically, after One Acre Fund staffs an internal operations staff to the partnership

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

Professional Qualifications
The successful candidate will have the following minimum qualifications:

· Past microfinance/financial access experience, or BoP business experience. We are seeking an entrepreneurial person with a strong business mind who understands operations.

· Experience working in frontier environments and forging successful operating partnerships.

· Demonstrated experience building and managing relationships.

· Excellent communications and presentation skills.

· Ability to travel extensively, up to 30% within Africa and other international destinations.

Personal Attributes
The following personal attributes are desired:

· A deep and genuine commitment to serving the poor

· A passion for One Acre Fund’s program

· Humility, positive attitude, and an eagerness to develop their personal career

· Entrepreneurial spirit

· A sense of humor

Preferred Start Date

Flexible

Compensation

Commensurate with experience

Benefits

Health insurance, immunizations, flight, room and board.

Sponsor International Candidates

Yes

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