Director of Wood Harvest & Sales, KOMAZA Kenya

Hiring: Director of Wood Harvest & Sales
Wanted: An ambitious “intrapreneur” to build and lead Komaza’s core profit center – harvesting trees, value-adding processing, and wood product sales. This exciting role combines operations management, product R&D, marketing & sales, and team leadership.
Location: Kilifi, Kenya – a growing coastal town, one hour from Mombasa, Kenya’s 2nd largest city.
Languages: English required, Swahili a plus.
Start Date: As soon as possible.
Duration: Minimum 3 years, for individuals seeking a serious career opportunity. These core operations will grow significantly, and want a long-term leader for this key role.

Company: Planting millions of trees with poor farmers to sell as high-value wood products.

Komaza is a social business working to generate life-changing income for poor farmers by growing trees for sale as diverse wood products. Since 2008, we have planted 3,000 acres with over 5,000 farmers in coastal Kenya; we continue to plant more each season, with plans to accelerate. We see “micro-forestry” as the disruptive solution to meet East Africa’s growing wood deficit – with strong projected profitability, we aim to grow into one of East Africa’s leading forestry and wood product companies over the next decade, generating income for many thousands of farmers. Komaza has earned many awards for our innovative business model, plus recent articles in Forbes and Fast Company.

The Role: Build, lead and grow tree harvesting, processing & sales operations from scratch.

Komaza is approaching an exciting inflection point – after seven years of planting trees, we are ready to start harvesting. This is a critical milestone, and we seek a Director of Wood Harvest & Sales to lead us to success. This role is best described as “intrapreneurship” – instead of managing an existing team and operation, we seek an entrepreneur to hire their local team and build the operation from scratch. From 2015-2017, harvests will increase from 20,000 to over 200,000 trees annually, so these next few years are about building scalable operations across the harvest > processing > sales value chain:

· Tree Harvesting & Consolidation: Develop a team to harvest trees on farms and truck logs to Kilifi town, including hiring a Harvest Manager, who in turn will manage harvest officers on motorbikes, plus a logging truck. Conduct R&D to develop cost-efficient log hauling methods and trucking logistics, in preparation for quickly increasing tree harvests.

· Marketing, Distribution, Sales: Primarily sell wholesale to a few dozen wood vendors in Coastal Kenya, with relationships managed by a Sales Manager (reporting to the Director of Wood Harvest & Sales). Lead strategy and implementation of marketing efforts to build consumer awareness and demand, ultimately establishing sales contracts with vendors.

· Value-Adding Wood Processing: Conduct market R&D to identify Komaza’s core wood products for sale. Focus on primary processing (lathe, wood preservative, small sawmill, etc.), with an eye towards secondary manufacturing (window/door frames, beds, pre-fabricated “mud hut” frames, etc.). In the first two years, run product/market pilot experiments, set up a small workshop, and hire a team to be managed by a Processing Manager (another TBH direct report). As tree harvests increase, establish medium-scale industrial wood processing facilities.

About the Job: The Director of Wood Harvest & Sales must show excellence in the following areas:

· Strategic Planning: Work closely with company leadership to develop and refine the strategic vision for this department for the next 3-5 years; prioritize activities to achieve this vision.

· Team Leadership: Hire and lead all department staff (starting with 4+, growing to ~15 in the first few years). Engage direct reports daily to help make decisions and solve problems.

· Project Management:Strong planning and implementation of diverse operations, with detailed work planning and budgeting, followed by effective execution and iterative improvement.

· Capacity Building: Develop, implement and optimize the management systems, training materials, and SOPs to enable significant growth of these operations in the years ahead.

Essential Traits: We want an exceptionally talented generalist who can get things done:

· Self-starter: Strong initiative, focus, project management, hands-on execution, perseverance.

· Excellent “hard skills”: Deeply proficient with strategic business planning, critical thinking, problem solving, quantitative analysis, MS Office, etc. Interest to quickly learn new skills.

· Excellent “soft skills”: Our small cross-cultural team is looking for other good communicators with high emotional intelligence, a positive attitude, and respect for others. Humor also helps.

· High energy & standards, plus persistence:We need someone to pour significant energy and enthusiasm into this project, eager to work long hours for years to build something truly great.

Nice to Have: We’ll be pleasantly surprised if you can tick all of these, but a handful would be ideal:

· Entrepreneurial experience: We seek someone with significant entrepreneurial experience and a demonstrated ability to develop and lead a project and team from scratch.

· R&D experience: Familiarity with lean methodology for product/market R&D. This requires abundant-yet-structured creativity, balanced by rigorous strategic planning and critical thinking.

· Wood processing experience: While not mandatory (we will bring consultants for technical assistance as needed), experience with small-scale wood processing is a strong plus.

· Developing-world passion: We seek someone who has worked at least 1 year in the developing world (preferably East Africa), who is excited to work in Kenya for at least 3 years.

· Good education: Strong undergraduate performance (include GPA and test scores on CV). A Master’s degree is preferred but not required, we highly value real world experience.

Compensation & Benefits:Salary will start at reasonable level for good quality of life in Kilifi, with opportunities for raises and bonuses with strong performance. Health insurance, immunizations, and two return flights to home country per year are included. Possibility for future equity participation after demonstrated strong performance and a long-term commitment.