Director, Regenerative Agriculture

About TechnoServe:

At TechnoServe, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to build a better life. For over 50 years, we have given smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs the skills, connections, and confidence to lift themselves out of poverty. We leverage the power of markets and the private sector to create sustainable economic growth to benefit people and the planet. Our unique mix of business solutions, deep knowledge of local contexts, and data-driven insights is helping to fight poverty across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

TechnoServe staff are local-95% are from the countries in which they work. We put a high premium on collaboration and entrepreneurship. We hold ourselves and each other to the highest standards of integrity and transparency. And we focus on delivering lasting impact for our mission.

Job Summary:

The Director is a hands-on leader who drives the development of agriculture market development approaches and programs throughout the organization. As part of the Agri-Food Systems Transformation Practice, S/he will report to the Senior Director of the Practice and work with the Practice team to advance our corporate strategy. S/he will manage a small team; advise the leaders of TechnoServe's ~20 agriculture programs around the world; work closely with our global program development team to design impactful programs and produce winning proposals; and produce knowledge content for internal and external audiences that enables project teams to apply best practices and advances TechnoServe's thought leadership in our sector.

Program Overview:

The purpose of the Agri-Food Systems Transformation practice is to lead and support the development of innovative, regenerative and scalable solutions that benefit millions of people in low income places. Regenerative agriculture is a pillar of TechnoServe's work in agri-food systems, encompassing programs that seek to increase the incomes of smallholder farmers by accelerating the inclusive and sustainable commercialization of agricultural markets.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities:

Strategy: Integrate regenerative approaches across TechnoServe's agriculture work and contribute to TechnoServe's achievement of strategic goals.

• Develop and deliver on a flexible approach to significantly scale TechnoServe's impact in agricultural markets, including clearly articulated product and service offerings.
• Establish partnerships with experts and organizations that bring complementary capabilities; cultivate a bench of expert consultants with deep knowledge of regenerative agriculture in priority commodities and markets
• Collaborate with colleagues across the practice, and in other practices and departments to identify and adapt relevant approaches, frameworks and resources that can be applied to agricultural markets and/or integrated into other areas of work (e.g., Enterprise development; Improved diets; Women's and Youth empowerment)

Business Development: Secure funding for regenerative agriculture and market systems development programs

• Cultivate relationships and generate leads with funders at the intersection of climate, nature and agriculture, including leveraging and extending personal networks to identify attractive funding and partnership opportunities.
• Participate and/or lead co-design workshops with donors and other stakeholders
• Provide technical leadership on proposals, leading design and guiding partnerships, supporting recruitment and budgeting, drafting logical frameworks and contributing written components when needed.
• Support colleagues to generate leads with their contacts by providing talking points, communications collateral and in-person support on occasion
• Develop and structure analytical models and conduct quantitative analyses that enhance program design and enable target setting

Technical Support: Scale impact through consistently high-quality delivery and adaptation of programs

Provide technical assistance to TechnoServe programs around the world, working with program teams to ensure high quality program execution, development and application of best practices, and gathering and use of evidence for continuous improvement.

• Deliver in-depth support to high priority programs through, for example, active mentorship and regular meetings with program lead, participation in regular progress assessments, leadership of program adaptation when needed.
• Support leaders of new programs during the mobilization phase to access and apply best practices (e.g. select staff recruitment, diagnostic reviews, development of curriculum, materials and management tools, etc.)
• Collaborate with the global MEL team to define meaningful and practical indicators for program monitoring, adaptive management, and impact evaluation.
• Monitor and assess program quality across the portfolio, link program leaders to resources that can strengthen program execution and prioritize programs for hands-on technical support
• Ensure agricultural programs consistently integrate regenerative practices, digital tools to maximize efficiency, and women.

Thought Leadership and Knowledge Sharing: Advance TechnoServe's thought leadership on regenerative agriculture and market systems development, and ensure access to effective tools and resources

• Gather, generate, codify and share knowledge that drives an internal enrichment and learning cycle, strengthens our impact and enables TechnoServe to play a thought leadership role in this space
• Develop and maintain on-demand content about regenerative agriculture and market systems development that enable colleagues in business development and program delivery to apply proven approaches and best practices with limited hands-on support e.g., curated resource library, webinars, intranet page(s)Develop blog posts, presentations and other communications that put forward a point of view, lessons learned and case studies based on TechnoServe experience
• Participate in conferences, networks and relevant events to learn from others and to increase TechnoServe's visibility and contributions in this space

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree with 12 years of professional progressive experience in low & middle income country agricultural markets including significant leadership in agricultural trading, commodity market analysis, agricultural policy development and/or agricultural supply chain management, or similar. Or, 8 years with a Master's degree.
• A minimum of 4 years' experience in agribusiness or agriculture development, preferably in international business
• Demonstrated expertise of best practices and current innovations within regenerative and market-driven agricultural development.
• Proven analytical skills
• Proven ability to manage through influence

Required Languages: Fluency in English required. Competence in Spanish, Portuguese and/or French is preferred.

Travel: Travel up to 30% domestic and international

Preferred Qualifications:

• Work experience in a developing country preferred
• Experience in designing and leading impactful international development programs in agriculture preferred
• Experience managing a large program or business preferred

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Passion for TechnoServe's mission of prosperity for all
• Strong command of MS PowerPoint, Excel, and Word
• Excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, flexibility and responsively

Our preference is for the Director to be based in our Arlington, VA, Headquarters, working from the office twice per week (Tuesdays & Thursdays). However, we will consider applicants from a country where TechnoServe has operations. These applicants would follow the TechnoServe Country Office schedule where they are hired. All applicants must have work authorization at the time of application. TechnoServe will not provide sponsorship for this role.

We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe's vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply.

With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability and all other protected classes.

We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks.

If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources at recruitment@tns.org or call +1 202 785 4515.