Kenya: Director of Field 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 Field Operations

Field Ops is ultimately responsible for the planning, coordination and timely implementation of our innovative micro-forestry model, which creates life-changing income for our farmers by growing trees more cost-efficiently than large-scale plantations. We plant trees every rainy season (2x/year): enroll farmers; support them through land preparation; distribute inputs and seedlings; plant trees; ensure post-planting care and long-term maintenance. Komaza’s Field Ops currently serves over 6,000 farmers in Kilifi County through our extension network of nearly 80 staff – currently one Field Coordinator, five Field Managers, 12 Field Officers, and 60 Facilitators. Critically, this department needs to be supercharged to enable dramatic scaling – we aim to grow 10X in the next 5 years, planting over 20 million trees while scaling up to 50,000 farmers, managed by hundreds of field staff. This will require a significant investment in a complete overhaul of our ops systems, plus a deep dedication to coaching and leading all levels of our Field Ops team.

About this Role

As Director of Field Ops, you will be responsible for orchestrating all people and processes to drive dramatic growth, while simultaneously delivering quality improvements across the value chain. This role calls for a proven generalist operations superstar with the ability to grow a complex farmer extension network; this is not a “forestry expert” role. To succeed, you will need to be an inspirational team leader and very detail-oriented manager, but must not act like a “boss.” You will be responsible for driving growth at both strategic and deeply operational levels. This is a very demanding role that will require a lot of hands-on work, not a lot of high-level delegation. You will be responsible for detailed planning, coordinating, quality control, coaching, and troubleshooting – anything and everything necessary to make this complex operation succeed, and scale significantly, season after season. You will report to Komaza’s COO while working closely with the Founder & CEO, as well as other senior executives.

Responsibilities

• Build and rigorously apply world-class operations systems to plan, manage, track and report on every step in the Field Ops value chain.


• Build a Field Ops team culture of collaboration, performance, positivity, and accountability, with all motivated to help farmers and deliver forestry excellence.


• Lead dramatic growth of our core farmer operations, growing your team of field extension staff from 75 to 300+ in the next two years; achieve 10X scaling in the next 5 years to create one of East Africa’s top-three forestry assets.


• Invest in team leadership, coaching and relationship building, with a dedicated passion for developing our people, from your direct reports to frontline field staff.


• Collaborate with other operations departments (technical forestry, nursery, farmer relations, and harvest), supporting departments, and executives to define operations strategy and coordinate business resources with success.

Qualifications

• 8+ years’ relevant work experience, ideally with 4+ years leading significant growth of decentralized operations and/or an extension network in East Africa; an MBA is preferred.


• Proven experience leading high-performing decentralized teams with limited formal education and professional experience. You can thrive in dynamic, uber-growth situations. You’ve worked and thrived at a rapidly scaling company.


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


• Energetic and enthusiastic – willing to do whatever is necessary to get the job done. You’re 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 and environmental hurdles.


• Proven success working in Africa or developing country is strongly preferred.

Expectations

We need a Director of Field Operations who wants to make a meaningful commitment to leading fast growth of this department for a minimum of 3-5+ years. This role will be based at our current headquarters in Kilifi, Kenya for the foreseeable future. The role offers competitive salary and benefits with significant growth potential.

Application Deadline

Closing date is 7th August 2016.

How to apply:

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