VP of Operations 314 views0 applications

Reports to: CEO
Direct Reports: Global Procurement, Knowledge Management, Communication and Government Relations, Training and Strategic Growth Initiatives
Critical Requirement: French and English fluency required
Location: Thies, Senegal
Application: Due September 30th but reviewed on a rolling basis
Start date: October – November 2019 but flexible

About myAgro
myAgro is an award-winning non-profit social enterprise based in West Africa. myAgro has pioneered a mobile savings model that allows farmers to invest their own funds in high-quality seed, fertilizer, and training and increase their harvest and income by 50-100%. myAgro’s North Star is to help 1 million farmers increase their incomes by $1.50 per day by 2025 and lift themselves out of poverty. Learn more from myAgro’s founder here.

Organizational Growth
myAgro continues growing! We have doubled in size every year for the past 5 years. We serve 60,000 farmers and are marching rapidly towards our north star goal of 1 million!  Our team is now 400+ strong with a community of 863 village entrepreneurs working in 1,500 villages across three countries.

We are growing because we have a model that works for our farmers and a clear mission: to move smallholder farmers out of poverty.

Our path to growth will be linked to three key activities: Scaling, Strengthening and Sharing. Scale will come by increasing customer density within our two core operational countries, Mali and Senegal, significantly expanding operations in our newest country, Tanzania, and by launching operations in two new countries by 2021. To strengthen operations, we will invest in the systems, processes, and people needed to sustain continued growth and make big leaps in our operating effectiveness. Finally, improved sharing will come through the launch of a knowledge management initiative and sharing best practices across countries and departments.

The VP of Operations joins the organization to steer this growth phase. At eight years old, myAgro is a medium-sized enterprise that is poised to grow significantly in the coming years.  The VP of Operations will work to ensure that myAgro is setting and meeting strategic, impact and profit goals, achieving operational efficiency, and delivering high quality client service.

Responsibilities

• Develop & lead strategy: We want you to develop work plans, hiring roadmap and timelines for our growth. You will contribute to strategic discussions about our operations, sustainability, global procurement and knowledge management. You will help us think big but ensure that we get the details right.
• Direct operations: You will develop the systems that comprise operations excellence. You love the details and have the discipline to help teams follow procedures. In particular, you’ll ensure that we have the right operations procedures (SOPs) and systems for our operations that support the field: facilities, people, IT, and supply chain management.
• Training: you’ll manage a relatively new team in charge of digital learning at myAgro. We have 2000+ smartphones in the field who can all access training for self-guided learning and assessment. You’ll develop the roadmap to support this year and future year’s capacity building needs and develop a digital learning suite of tools (training, quizzes and analytics for supervisors and management) to support myAgro’s growth targets.
• New country expansion (in a box): Working with the program and knowledge management team and various departments, you will ensure that we have “new country in a box” materials, SOPs and strategy defined and ready for expansion.
• Strategic Initiatives: Using a strategic lens, you’ll oversee a portfolio of strategic projects that help accelerate growth or unlock bottlenecks. For example, you will partner with the sales/field team in the development of a leaner staffing models to determine viability and to create plans to launch and grow profitably. Or you may run a strategic process with the finance to turn all operations cashless to reduce operational risk.
• Deliver results: Just like we measure product sales and impact, we need you to measure our operational success. To define what it means to excel to help your team learn, grow, and thrive.

Your Background

• Operations expertise: You have 10+ years’ management operations in a global company. You know what excellence looks like in areas like operations, human resources, finance & accounting, supply chain, facilities, and IT.
• Thought leader: You have influenced top leaders of a company or organization. Others look to you for insight and your opinion. You have cutting edge ideas, spot trends, and propose ideas to address challenges.
• Track record leading growth: You have successfully managed growth in an African company or NGO – one that is expanding in size (people, $) and geography (new countries).
• Ability to execute: You are a doer! You have great ideas and the ability to implement them in a timely and thoughtful manner. You can translate a vision into plans so that we understand where we’re headed and what we need to do to get there.
• Country management experience: You’ve led country or field operations for an NGO or for-profit company. You can coach country directors on challenges and solutions associated with start-up and country operations because you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
• Thrive under pressure: This role isn’t for the meek. We want excitement, not reluctance when a big decision needs to be made and the pressure is on.
• Communication: You are candid, direct, strategic communicator and able to help others develop this skill.
• Sense of humor & good cook: You’ll be joining the “home team” in our cook-offs and friendly competition!

myAgro provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, marital/parental status, national origin, age, disability, political opinion, social status, veteran status, and genetics. myAgro complies with all applicable federal, provincial and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment.