Job Title: Project Manager
Organisation: TechnoServe (TNS)
Duty Station: Northern Uganda, Uganda
Reports to: Country Director
Travel: when required
About US:
TechnoServe (TNS) is an international non-profit international development organization founded in 1968. Its mission is to help entrepreneurial men and women break the cycle of poverty by building businesses that create jobs, income, and economic opportunities for their families, their communities, and their countries.
About Program:
TechnoServe is anticipating funding of a horticulture value chain project for the period 2022 to 2023. The Northern Uganda Horticulture Market Acceleration Platform (NU-HortiMAP) aims to support entrepreneurial farmers, SMEs, and government leaders to chart their own course towards a competitive, inclusive Ugandan horticulture sector. NU-HortiMAP will holistically address market actor constraints through technical assistance (TA) and financing solutions along horticulture value chains to improve food security, strengthen business growth, increase incomes, create jobs, and promote sustainable market-based growth in the horticulture sector in selected districts in Northern Uganda.
Job Summary: TechnoServe seeks a Project Manager to provide overall technical and administrative leadership and expertise over the program.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
- Leading overall implementation and management of the anticipated program, from inception to close-out
- Providing strategic guidance, leadership, management, and general technical oversight of the program
- Serving as the primary liaison with the Donor, the Ugandan government, and all other counterparts, implementing partners, and stakeholders involved with the program
- Brokering relationships between market actors, including: SMEs, Producer Organizations, buyers, exporters, and financial institutions
- Recruiting, leading, managing, and supervising implementation teams comprising long- and short-term team members and consortium partners
- Continuously developing operational efficiencies and driving innovations in delivery, ensuring that the program meets established objectives and targets and delivers Value for Money
- Serving as spokesperson for the program and presenting its work regionally
- Identifying and communicating critical program learnings
- Identifying issues and risks related to implementation in a timely manner, suggesting appropriate program adjustments
- Supervisory Responsibilities: Leading a team of 13 staff and so experience leading multi-disciplinary teams is desired.
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Agricultural Economics, or another relevant field, and at least 7 years of experience in relevant private sector or development programs or a Master’s degree plus 5 years of relevant experience.
- Significant program management experience in commercial agriculture, agribusiness development, access to finance, market access, trade facilitation, and partnership development
- Fluency in English required. Understanding of Luo, Swahili, and other native languages is an advantage.
- Strong interpersonal and communications skills and ability to effectively motivate and manage teams in a multi-cultural environment
- Ability to work under tight deadlines while managing multiple tasks and activities
- Ability to develop well written, cohesive analyses and reports
- Understanding of capacities and constraints of smallholder farming and agribusiness development
- An honest broker who is able to build win-win partnerships between multiple agriculture sector stakeholders, including agribusinesses, public sector, financial institutions, technology providers, and others
- Ability to clearly communicate a high-level strategy to internal and external stakeholders, while driving execution of a work plan and achievement of short-term milestones. Ability to use adaptive management principles to make strategic, data-driven decisions in the face of uncertainty and complexity
Desired
Additional qualifications that would make a candidate more desirable. We seek candidates who bring experience with:
- Leading complex horticulture or other agriculture programs in Uganda and/or Sub-Saharan Africa strongly preferred
- Brokering and nurturing public-private partnerships using a high-touch approach to partnership development and implementation
- Influencing and collaborating with senior management of agribusinesses (input suppliers, producer organizations, processors, traders, etc.), financial institutions, and other private sector actors to achieve partnership results
- Implementing market systems development approaches, including a nuanced understanding of when to implement hybrid MSD-value chain approaches depending on the maturity and needs of market actors
- Sourcing and delivering demand-driven technical assistance and business development services particularly through technical assistance facility mechanisms
- Deploying a broad variety of catalytic financial instruments, including matching grants, credit facilities, and access to commercial finance, and a demonstrated understanding of factors that influence which instruments or combination of instruments to select
- Designing and implementing inclusive business models that integrate women and youth (farmers, entrepreneurs) and successfully removing structural barriers that bar entry from entering or thriving in agricultural value chains
- Designing and implementing climate-smart approaches that improve the resilience of value chain actors and agricultural sectors as a whole
- Implementing consumer-facing campaigns to promote food safety and nutritious diets
- Implementing large, complex programs funded by the Government of the Netherlands
Success Factors:
- Competency is a combination of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) directly related to successful performance on the job.
Core Competencies include:
- Integrity and honesty: Is widely trusted; seen as a direct, truthful individual; presents truthful information in an appropriate and helpful manner; keeps confidences; admits mistakes; does not misrepresent himself or herself for personal gain.
- Team Work/ Relationships: Works co-operatively and flexibly with other members of the team with a full understanding of the role to be played as a team member and/or leader, to achieve a common goal. Ability to build and maintain effective relationships and networks.
- Learning attitude: Proactively takes advantage of opportunities to learn. Actively identifies new areas for learning; applies and shares new knowledge and skill appropriately.
- Diversity/Inclusiveness: Demonstrates an understanding and appreciation for diversity and supports diversity efforts. Interacts effectively with and inclusively with people of all races, cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, religions, ages, and genders.
- Communication: Expresses ideas effectively in individual and group situations. Listens effectively; shares information, ideas and arguments; adjusts terminology, language and communication modes to the needs of the audience; ensures accurate understanding; acts in a way that facilitates open exchange of ideas and information; uses appropriate non-verbal communication.
- Decision making/Problem Solving: Is able to analyze situations, diagnose problems, identify the key issues, establish and evaluate alternative courses of action and produce a logical, practical and acceptable solution. Is able to make effective decisions on a day-to-day basis, taking ownership of decisions, demonstrating sound judgement in escalating issues where necessary.
- Results Oriented/ High Quality Deliverables: Stays focused on the efforts necessary to achieve quality results consistent with programmatic or departmental goals. Demonstrates the ability to achieve effective results; works persistently to overcome obstacles to goal achievement. Accomplishes tasks by considering all areas involved, no matter how small; showing concern for all aspects of the job; accurately checking processes and tasks.
- Planning & Time Management: Establishes a course of action for self and/or others to accomplish a specific goal. Effectively plans, schedules, prioritizes and controls activities; identifies, integrates and orchestrates resources (people, material, information, budget, and/or time) to accomplish goals. Prioritizes work according to the program or department’s goals, not just own job responsibilities; manages own time effectively.
- Business Acumen: The ability to use information, ask the right questions and take decisions that make an impact on the overall business performance.
Job Specific/Technical Competencies include:
- Partnership/Donor Management: program staff should understand and apply techniques to develop, maintain and manage business relationships with clients, donors and internal or external partners in order to implement and manage projects and/or identify new business.
- Financial & Resource Management: an important competency program staff must possess to enable them budget properly based on facts and change course when necessary, knowledge of finance to develop and manage budgets.
- Innovative Mindset: program staff should know how to ask questions and seeks out information from multiple sources, learn from mistakes, and see change as an opportunity.
- Analysis, Research, Report Writing: Experience in business planning and analysis, modeling for feasibility and execution. Able to analyze and express oneself clearly in business writing.
Managerial Competencies include:
- Emotional Intelligence: Empathetic, understands attitudes, interests, needs of others; predict others behavior. Self-aware and keeps own emotions from interfering with work. Understanding both the strengths and limitations of others.
- Trust to Delegate: Appropriately allocates decision‐making authority and/or task responsibility to others; maximizes the organization’s and individual’s effectiveness.
- Strategic Thinking: Formulates objectives and priorities, and implements plans consistent with the long-term interests of the organization in a global environment. Capitalizes on opportunities and manages risks.
- Staff Development: Planning and supporting the development of individuals’ skills and abilities so that they can fulfill current or future job responsibilities more effectively.
- Coaching/Feedback: Recognizes and acknowledges strengths in others. Provides timely guidance and feedback to help others develop knowledge and skill areas to accomplish tasks or solve problems
Career Pathways: The Position that might be next in career opportunities for employees in this job title include Program Director
How to Apply:
All applicants who wish to join Technoserve in this capacity should apply online at the link below.
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