Malawi Innovations Specialist
About One Acre Fund
Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund supplies 1 million smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms vastly more productive. Our 8,000+ team is drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. With operations across six core countries in Africa, we make farmers more prosperous by providing quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural training to improve harvests. On average, the farmers we serve harvest 50 percent more food after working with One Acre Fund.
To learn more about our work, take a look at our Why Work Here blog for more information.
About the Role
The Tree Program in Malawi focuses on distributing tree seedlings to farmers using a decentralized tree nursery model. We now want to build additional products on top of this scale to increase farmer impact. The Innovations Specialist, based onsite in Zomba, Malawi, will help coordinate an impact vision, manage a trial pipeline, and help scale promising trials to dramatically improve and deepen our impact per farmer. You will report to the Tree Program Lead and be a key deputy in a medium-sized department. The success of this role will be reflected through increased $ impact for our Tree farmers.
Responsibilities
Innovation Strategy: Identify impact pathways that our current program can trial and co-create an overall strategy for Tree impact. The ideal outcome here includes new suggested products and service channels to respond to farmer needs and improve program impact.
- Work with the Tree Lead and global team members to create a promising pipeline of impactful services and products;
- Research and prioritize new service channels for IV, including fruit tree trials, community-level tree products, non-tree products, and more.
Innovation Execution:
- Prioritize and test specific trial products and services;
- Build and run pilots through the Trees team;
- Monitor trials, adjusting and responding to challenges and opportunities as they unfold.
Innovation Integration: You will help integrate and scale the most promising trials with the wider Trees team.
Career Growth and Development
We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.
Qualifications
Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:
- A Bachelor's Degree Required - in rural project management, business management, agroforestry, forestry, agriculture or related fields.
- 3+ years of experience in program strategy and implementation in rural contexts, related to agriculture and agroforestry
- Experience managing project or idea pipelines, and building consensus around priorities
- Experience reviewing data and drawing conclusions, and are able to make concrete recommendations and suggest business design improvements
- At least 2 years of people and project management experience focused on strategy or trial execution.
- English professional-level proficiency, proficiency in Chichewa preferred.
Preferred Start Date
As soon as possible
Job Location
Zomba, Malawi
Benefits
Health insurance, paid time off
Eligibility
This role is only open to citizens or permanent residents of Malawi
Application Deadline
24 January 2024
One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here (globalhotline@oneacrefund.org), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.
We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.
Important
One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here, but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.
DEI
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.
Anti discrimination
We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.