MICROFINANCE PARTNERSHIPS MANAGER

Wanted
Exceptional mid-career professional with microfinance/financial access experience (preferred) or a strong business mind.

Job Location
Nairobi preferred; major European city possible. Frequent world travel, particularly E and W Africa.

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 NGO 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
The global microfinance movement has thousands of institutions and is starting to explore how to serve farmers, who are the majority of the world's poor. One Acre Fund is growing the largest network of smallholding farmers in Africa, and proving that loans to smallholder farmers can be commercially viable. We are challenging ourselves to think big, and to invest resources into figuring out how to help the microfinance movement more seriously consider serving the world's farmers.

We are genuinely interested in helping to promote and shape the emerging agriculturalmicrofinance movement. The Microfinance Partnerships Manager will lead One Acre Fund's work to help bring together other organizations with experience in agriculture microfinance. S/he will help form an association of these organizations, develop core principles, and develop structures to incentivize other organizations to enter agriculture microfinance.

Separately, s/he will explore the eventual possibility of operating partnerships between One Acre Fund and other organizations (most likely microfinance organizations, but could be other organizations that are interested in serving rural farmers at scale).

We are seeking an exceptional mid-career professional with microfinance/financial access experience (preferred) or other base-of-the-pyramid business experience to serve as Microfinance Partnerships Manager.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

The Microfinance Partnerships Manager will perform the following and other duties as assigned:

Build meaningful and genuine one-on-one relationships with worldwide microfinance leaders and other organizations interested in serving rural farmers at scale.

• Travel frequently within East and West Africa in particular
• Leverage One Acre Fund’s existing relationships to discover new relationships
• Build real relationships with some of the most effective organizations in the world

Help to build the overall agricultural finance movement

• Develop a multi-year strategy for movement-building
• Promote core principles that distinguish agriculture finance from the regular microfinance movement (e.g. asset finance, training, retail of seed and fertilizer)
• Bring together other organizations with experience in agriculture microfinance

Explore the eventual possibility of operational partnerships

• Working closely with our core operating staff, help to determine partnership strategy
• Write MOUs and take the lead on communicating with the partner
• Continue to be involved strategically, after One Acre Fund staffs an internal operations staff to the partnership

Qualifications

Professional Qualifications
The successful candidate will have the following minimum qualifications:

• Past microfinance/financial access experience, or BoP business experience. We are seeking an entrepreneurial person with a strong business mind who understands operations.
• Experience working in frontier environments and forging successful operating partnerships.
• Demonstrated experience building and managing relationships.
• Excellent communications and presentation skills.
• Ability to travel extensively, up to 30% within Africa and other international destinations.

Personal Attributes
The following personal attributes are desired:

• A deep and genuine commitment to serving the poor
• A passion for One Acre Fund’s program
• Humility, positive attitude, and an eagerness to develop their personal career
• Entrepreneurial spirit
• A sense of humor

Preferred Start Date
Flexible.

Benefits
Health cover, immunizations, flights.

Career Development
Bi–annual management consulting–style career reviews, and significant investment in career development. Your manager will invest significant time in your career development.

To Apply

1. Complete this form.
2. Email cover letter and resume to jobs@oneacrefund.org (Subject line: "Microfinance Partnerships Manager 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).