Job Title:  Senior Business Advisor

Organisation: TechnoServe (TNS)

Duty Station:  Northern Uganda, Uganda

Reports to: Program Manager

Travel: Remote rural locations

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 HortiMAP Program:

TechnoServe has been implementing HortiMAP to support market actors to work towards creating a vibrant, sustainable Ugandan horticulture sector since 2020 with financing from the EKN. The project was restricted to 23 districts in the Central, Eastern and South-western region excluding the North which has equally great Horticultural potential. Over 80% of the HortiMAP financing was strategically redirected to support more of productive activities leaving a gap on the market systems development end of the Value Chain.

TechnoServe will implement the NU-Hortimap funded by aBi Investments Ltd to scale the successes gained under Hortimap in Northern Uganda. This program over the 18 Months will support market actors to work towards creating a vibrant, sustainable Ugandan horticulture sector. The program combines catalytic funding through a Market Development Facility and Technical Assistance fund to leverage private sector and local resources and expertise to strengthen SMEs and local supply chains, while delivering world-class entrepreneurship training to farmers and retailers to realize their potential. These interventions are expected to: a) Train & support 7000 farmers on entrepreneurship, regenerative good agricultural practices (GAP), post-harvest handling (PHH) & reduced loss, financing & use of technologies, nutrition

1. b) Provide tailored business advisory support and catalytic finance to producer organizations (POs) and farmer-facing micro, small c) Provide technical assistance to 2 public sector actors to disseminate information on market standards, inspect horticulture farms, and develop a domestic digital traceability system and d) Support 4 market-facing MSMEs with tailored business development advisory, investor readiness support, and access to catalytic finance.

Job Summary:  This position is part of the Northern Uganda Horticultural Value Chain Development Team which works to oversee and deliver high quality technical assistance to MDF clients, enterprises within their supply chain, and farmers.

The Senior Business Advisor will work closely with Program Manager, Agronomy Advisors, MDF specialist, Business Counsellors, the MEL Coordinator, participants, local stakeholders, and partners.  S/he will be responsible for delivering training to higher-capacity MSME clients and overseeing quality delivery of training delivered by HortiMAP Agronomy Advisors and Business Counsellors. Additionally, the senior business advisor will coordinate activities and operations of the program and act as key contact point for partners and stakeholders within the region including providing support to different SMEs implementing business models under catalytic financing in the region.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:  

• Use TechnoServe’s tested assessment tools to benchmark producer organizations capacity and help identify areas for improvement, deliver coaching and mentorship to the producer organizations on identified gaps.
• Link producer organizations to business development service providers to build capacity in core areas such governance, marketing, member services, and inclusive leadership of women and youth.
• Deliver TechnoServe’s proven entrepreneurship training to micro-enterprises.
• Support Business Counsellors in delivering entrepreneurship training and business mentorship to micro-entrepreneurs (fresh fruits and vegetable vendors)
• Facilitate linkages between and among clients (farmers, vendors, micro-ratailers), and to services and products
• Ensure the delivery of technical training packages by associate agronomy advisors is of high quality, is appropriate to the local context, and is effectively reaching participants;
• Collect baseline figures and measure impact in order to monitor progress (M&E)
• Planning and coordinating of activities in the region to ensure that the objectives of the program are met within the set times and resources and that impact is maximized
• Periodic reporting of the situation on the ground to provide both data and anecdotal evidence of impact
• Oversee quality delivery of training delivered by HortiMAP Associate Agronomy Advisors and Business Counsellors.
• Coordinating the activities and operations in the region and act as a key contact person to partners, collaborators and stakeholders in the region
• Provide support to SMEs implementing business models under catalytic financing, including indirect monitoring and oversight on the activities of the SMEs.
• Any other duties assigned by the supervisor

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The applicant must hold a degree in any of the following fields; Entrepreneurship, Agribusiness, Agriculture Economics or any other related disciplines plus 5 years of experience. OR a Master’s degree and 3 years’ experience.
• Minimum of 3 years’ field and technical experience with agribusiness development, youth development, or entrepreneurship in Uganda.
• Knowledge of the agri-business sector in the country
• Strong private sector experience and entrepreneurial skills
• Knowledge of business management, marketing plan development, business plan development, supply chain studies and market surveys
• Experience in the financial markets and products
• Proven understanding of Monitoring and Evaluation tools and practices
• Excellent problem solving and analytical skills
• Good computer skills in business software (Excel, MS Project and PowerPoint)
• Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills a must;
• Ability to develop well-written, cohesive analyses and reports;
• Track record of building strong client and stakeholder relationships;

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 appropriately and helpfully; keeps confidences; admits mistakes; does not misrepresent themselves for personal gain.
• Team Work/ Relationships: Works cooperatively and flexibly with other team members with a complete understanding of the role to be played as a team member and 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 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 an open exchange of ideas and information; use appropriate non-verbal communication.
• Decision making/Problem Solving: Can analyze situations, diagnose problems, identify the key issues, establish and evaluate alternative courses of action and produce a logical, practical, and acceptable solution. Can make effective decisions daily, take ownership of decisions, and demonstrate sound judgment 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 others to accomplish a specific goal. Effectively plans, schedules, prioritizes, and controls activities; identifies, integrates, and orchestrates resources (people, material, information, budget, and 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 make decisions that impact the overall business performance.

Job Specific/Technical Competencies include:

• Financial & Resource Management: The ability to estimate, justify, and manage appropriate funding levels to support goal accomplishment. Managing Resources is about understanding human, financial, and operational resource issues to make decisions to build and plan efficient project workflows and improve overall organizational performance.
• Donor/Partnership Management: Identifying opportunities and taking action to build strategic relationships between one’s area and other areas, teams, departments, or organizations to help achieve business goals.
• 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.
• Innovative Mindset: Curious inquiries, asks questions and seeks out information from multiple sources, learns from mistakes, sees change as an opportunity.

Managerial Competencies:

• Emotional Intelligence: The act of knowing, understanding, and responding to emotions, overcoming stress at the moment, and being aware of how your words and actions affect others. Emotional intelligence consists of 4 attributes: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
• Strategic Thinking: Managers should recognize key actions underlying problems, make connections and patterns, see consequences and implications. Anticipates obstacles realistically and plans ways to deal with them.
• Staff Development: managers are required to work with employees to plan on developing skills and abilities so that they can fulfill current or future job/role responsibilities more effectively.
• Trust to Delegate: managers should have trust and willingness to assign responsibilities to direct reports and give them discretion and authority to carry them out.
• Feedback/Coaching (mentoring): managers should give instructions, suggestions, explanations, and feedback to subordinates. (SPI+R)

Career Pathways: The positions that may be a next career opportunity for employees in this job title include program Manager.

How to Apply:

All applicants who wish to join Technoserve in this capacity should apply online at the link below.

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