Kenya: Director of Farmer Relations

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 Farmer Relations

We are building a new Farmer Relations department to ensure our farmers have a great experience and strong relationship with Komaza throughout the lifetime of our micro-forestry partnership. Farmer Relations will focus on farmer research to develop deep insights into their experience and perceptions, liaising with local leaders to serve as well-informed advocates, developing innovative community programs to boost impact and build positive goodwill, and most importantly – developing and managing delivery of diverse communications to our farmers, both through a dedicated Farmer Relations team, and via extension staff in our Field Operations department. Farmer Relations starts with social marketing and program enrollment, when farmers need to clearly understand the partnership; continues throughout the tree growing and thinning phases; and ultimately develops into explaining harvest operations and outcomes, and helping farmers plan how to spend their life-changing income. We currently have one experienced Farmer Relations Officer; you will recruit and lead 8+ dedicated staff in the first year, with significant growth thereafter as Komaza scales farmer operations 10X over the next 5 years.

About this Role

As Director of Farmer Relations and founder of this department, you will be responsible for driving growth at both strategic and operational levels. You will need to spend significant time in the field to develop a deep understanding of our farmers, while also managing growing operations from our HQ office. This role calls for a skilled communications content creator, who is also a talented operations manager working to develop, coach and manage a growing team to deliver compelling content. You are an open-minded, flexible, positive thinker and detail-oriented operator that cares most about driving lasting impact by getting everyone to work effectively together with a common culture of teamwork. You will report to Komaza’s COO, while working closely with the Founder & CEO, as well as other senior executives.

Responsibilities

• Develop communication materials for: enrollment; planting; lifetime farmer engagement; harvesting; returning income; smart spending for impact.


• Research and understand our farmers’ lives, both day-to-day and their Komaza experience. Develop communication strategies and materials to maximize communities’ positive perception of Komaza and our impact on farmers’ lives.


• Design, develop and implement Komaza’s impact-measurement processes, with a comprehensive socio-economic baseline survey followed by post-harvest follow ups to deliver deep quantitative and qualitative insights into our actual impact.


• Design and pilot innovative programs to increase farmer engagement & impact, including a savings and credit cooperative and rural “Komaza Farmer Shop” to sell discounted household goods to farmers and community ambassadors.


• Design, develop and manage systems to collect and act on farmer feedback.


• Recruit and lead our Farmer Relations team. Train Farmer Relations and Field Operations teams to effectively act on farmer feedback and to communicate the right content with a positive, compelling tone. Empower all staff to be positive, well-informed ambassadors for Komaza’s model, values and impact.

Qualifications

• 8+ years’ relevant work experience, ideally with 4+ years working closely with small-scale farmers, plus experience developing and delivering communications or training materials; a Masters is preferred.


• Excellent oral and written communication skills; some Swahili and a strong desire to learn is a serious plus; aptitude to distill complex messages into simple, structured communications with lots of relatable analogies.


• Energetic and enthusiastic – willing to do whatever is necessary to get the job done. You’re well-organized with experience in project management.


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


• Proven success working and living in Africa is strongly preferred.

Expectations

We need a Director of Farmer Relations 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.

Application Deadline

Closing date is 7th August 2016.

How to apply:

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