Leadership Training Program

Wanted

Two very strong operations and finance staff to participate in a one year leadership training program, followed by an 18-month leadership position at One Acre Fund.

Job Location

Rural Rwanda (French required) or Rural Kenya (English required).

Duration

Minimum two year's 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 start–up non-profit in Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi that is innovating a new way of helping farm families to achieve their full potential. Instead of giving handouts, One Acre 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 more than 100% average gain in farm income per acre. We have laser–like focus on generating better lives for the people that we serve.

Job Description

We are looking for two very strong operations and finance staff to participate in a one year leadership training program, followed by an 18-month leadership position at One Acre Fund.

Leadership Training Program: Rotate between three operational finance functions, spending four months each on Farmer Repayment, Internal Audit, and Expense Tracking; partake in twice-monthly leadership training sessions with the Finance Director. Rotations will focus on a partnership with a local staff member and innovation projects on current operations. Examples include:

• Farmer Repayment: Partner with a Senior Bookkeeper who manages a team of 10+ Bookkeepers; provide mentorship to a young manager while improving processes to track and analyze farmer repayments.
• Internal Audit: Innovate on our current auditing processes – Get out in the field and see how our audit team of 16 staff can more efficiently verify over 500,000 payments made from over 50,000 farmers.
• Expense Tracking: A key to becoming sustainable is to cut costs. Trial a new expense tracking process with one department to give real-time feedback on the budget, detailed analyses of recent spending habits, and reports on sustainability metrics.

Leadership opportunities after year one:

As a young organization, we are ready to hand over significant responsibility for specific, well-defined strategic initiatives as well as day-to-day management of our financial systems and team-members. Your primary task will be to manage the operations of the finance team in the country you work. Your objectives will be to improve operational efficiency and financial sustainability by leveraging the current staff. You will increase the quality of service provided by the finance team to other departments and ultimately to the farmer through performance management and systems improvements.

Typical tasks could include:

• Lead a large team: Manage the team of bookkeepers (30+ staff) who do data entry for our financial and client management systems. Managing and developing the talent of the finance team will be your most important role. You will also collaborate closely across with field operations to create tools and procedures, and will develop training, that ensures financial procedures are efficiently integrated with operational processes.
• Improve operations: We are always looking to innovate on our current operations in finance. Work with the logistics team to create a new inventory tracking system in order to improve efficiencies and give us a better understanding of the products in our warehouse.
• Push us towards sustainability. Provide reports on district, country and organization wide budget performance, and oversee the measurement of Financial KPI's and ensure appropriate action. Provide analysis and recommendations for improved efficiency and cost effectiveness.

Career Growth and Development

One Acre Fund invests in building management and leadership skills. We provide constant, actionable feedback delivered through weekly mentorship and through regular 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 and countries. This results in fast career growth for our staff.

Qualifications

We are looking for truly extraordinary candidates with up to 5+ years of work experience who will help take our organization to the next levels of impact and scale. This is a competitive posting for a career-track role with minimum initial commitment of 2.5 years. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Top-performing academic background (please include GPA and test scores on your resume).
• Leadership experience at work, or outside of work.
• Confidence with numbers.
• Strong work experiences. Examples include a demanding professional work experience in an operations, systems or finance function (e.g. implementing a new procurement process, managing a logistics system, working as a business or finance analyst).
• A willingness to commit to living in rural areas of East Africa for at least 2.5 years – this is a long-term, career-track position with potential to grow into a US-based management role.
• The ideal candidate will have at least one year demonstrated experience working in the developing world, although this is not a strict requirement.
• Rwanda - French required.
• Ability to cook/ laugh/ extraordinary patience – all desirable

Preferred Start Date

Flexible

Compensation
Modest starting salary + significant benefits. This is a career-track role with meaningful salary increases and long-term placement with One Acre Fund for high performers.

Benefits

Health cover, immunizations, flight, room and board.

Career Development

One Acre Fund will make significant investments in your career development through real-time mentoring, quarterly career reviews, and opportunity for increasing responsibilities that will challenge you and help you grow.

Sponsor International Candidates

Yes

To Apply

1. Complete this form.
2. Email cover letter and resume to jobs@oneacrefund.org (Subject line: "Leadership Training Program Search" + name of the site that referred you).
3. If you are a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV), please submit a copy of your Description of Service (DOS).