Kenya: Director of Business Operations

Organization: KOMAZA

Country: Kenya

Closing date: 07 Aug 2016

Who We Are

Komaza is revolutionizing African forestry by unlocking the potential for small farmers to serve booming wood markets. With roots in San Francisco and headquarters in coastal Kenya, we have planted over 2 million trees with more than 6,000 farmers, making us Kenya’s largest commercial tree planter. By leveraging farmers’ contribution of land and labor, Komaza can access effectively limitless land and establish a hectare of trees for far less than big plantations – a powerful disruption to the traditional forestry model. We have been recognized with numerous awards and investments, including Forbes, Ashoka, Mulago Foundation, and Novastar Ventures. Having recently assembled a top group of investors for a significant growth financing round, we are now seeking driven, high-performance leaders to launch this exciting chapter of accelerated growth.

About Business Operations

Komaza is building a new Biz Ops department as an internal consulting house to drive fast growth and performance improvement across the company. Working closely with other departments and senior executives, Biz Ops defines and implements initiatives that are both “high importance” and “high urgency” – the team will tackle diverse fast-paced product development and process improvement projects, with a particular focus on smart startup decision-making with critical cost-benefit analysis and lean R&D, plus developing and continuously optimizing robust and scalable operations systems. Some Biz Ops individuals will stay for 1-2+ years, while others will come on shorter internships and fellowship; culturally, the team will embody fast, flexible thinkers from Kenya and around the world with backgrounds spanning management consulting, finance, research and operations who will do whatever it takes to help Komaza succeed.

About this Role

As Director of Biz Ops, you will be responsible for driving change both at a strategic level and deeply operational level. As the leader of this initiative, you will need to thrive on ambiguity, while possessing the drive and organizational rigor to design a repeatable process for tackling a rapid succession of urgent requests. Most importantly, you must be a lifelong learner who is able to lead, coordinate and coach your team of bright consultants through diverse day-to-day challenges, including effectively and positively supporting other departments with a service mindset. You are an open-minded, flexible, and determined thinker and operator that cares most about driving lasting impact by converting strategies into results, and loves developing and delivering solutions for an ever-changing and always-growing backlog of diverse startup challenges. You will be exposed to every facet of Komaza’s organization, and must be able to balance long-term strategic thinking with near-term pragmatic problem solving and prioritization. You will report to Komaza’s Founder & CEO, and work very closely with other senior executives.

Responsibilities

• Develop a dynamic, deep understanding of how Komaza works, and constantly think about how to improve every department and the connections to bind them.


• Recruit and lead a team of management consultants, investment bankers, and operations gurus, while inspiring a culture of collaboration and accountability.


• Build deep relationships from executives to frontline staff to identify, design and deliver opportunities to translate business strategies into real world results.


• Develop tracking systems to prioritize ops challenges and strategic opportunities.


• Design and implement core operations and management systems to ensure the business meets and outperforms growth targets.


• Define company strategy, working closely with our Founder/CEO and others on our collaborative “Silicon Valley culture” senior team. Help build a management team committed to tenets of “JFDI” and “Go Big or Go Home.”

Qualifications

• 8+ years’ relevant work experience, ideally 4+ management experience in top-tier management consulting, i-banking, or corporate strategy; MBA preferred.


• Proven experience leading high-performing teams, especially in dynamic fast-growth environments, tackling a very diverse number of challenges.


• Excellent communication skills with the aptitude to distill complex systems and detailed analysis into simple, structured processes with concrete action plans.


• Data is your friend and Excel is your best friend. You also know how to thrive in uber-growth situations. You’ve worked and thrived at a rapidly scaling company.


• Energetic & enthusiastic – willing to do whatever necessary to get the job done.


• Very well-organized, with experience in project and change management.


• Comfort with ambiguity and uncertainty, as well as patience and perseverance in the face of serious logistical, environmental, and human resource hurdles.


• Proven success working and living in Africa preferred.

Expectations

We need a Director of Biz Ops who wants to make a meaningful commitment to building and scaling this department for a minimum of 3-5+ years. While we will open a Nairobi office to support regional expansion in the near future, this role will be primarily based at our current headquarters in Kilifi, Kenya for the foreseeable future. The role offers competitive salary and benefits with potential for further career growth.

How to apply:

Please follow this LINK to apply. Closing date is 7th August 2016.