Full-Time Chief Operating Officer
Job Description
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
myAgro is combating food and economic insecurity among some of the world’s most vulnerable individuals by providing smallholder farmers with access to the resources they need to escape poverty. Unlike many peer organizations with credit-based solutions, myAgro enables farmers to pay for seeds, fertilizer, and other resources in small increments as they save over the course of a year. This mobile layaway tool, plus myAgro’s just-in-time resource delivery system, superior product, and its robust agricultural training approach form a unique suite of services which raise farmers’ annual income by 50-100%, alleviate challenges of repayment, and markedly improve their families’ lives.
In addition to providing farmers with wraparound support from planting to harvest, myAgro operates a successful social enterprise model through which it trains and employs Village Entrepreneurs to expand the model into their local communities. This highly effective sales- and customer-centric approach has generated significant earned revenue, created a strong track record of growth, and set the stage for continued scale. For the past 5 years, myAgro has grown 40 – 80% year over year, and the team is now 400+ strong with a community of 1,800 Village Entrepreneurs working in 2,200 villages across three countries. To date, the organization has reached 90,000 farmers in Senegal, Mali, and Tanzania, and is on track to reach its ambitious North Star of serving 1 million farmers by 2025.
ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY
This role is all about scaling the model. Building on the momentum of its recent growth, this inaugural Chief Operating Officer (COO) will design the roadmap to help myAgro unlock the path to its North Star. This translates to scaling and strengthening via investments in systems, processes, and people to sustain continued growth; and sharing via improved knowledge management across countries and departments. The COO will have a mandate to drive efficiency and effectiveness in an operating model with integrated finance, HR, sales, product development, and delivery systems, and to create scalable frameworks for expansion. The COO should be a process-oriented leader with attention to detail.
The COO will serve as a strategic thought partner to myAgro’s innovative Founder & CEO, and will function as a highly visible deputy both internally and externally. As the organization’s unifier and bridge-builder, the COO will build, manage, and develop a highly collaborative, mission-driven team across multiple functions and regions. In optimizing myAgro’s organizational infrastructure, the COO will have the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the organization as well as on the lives and livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers and their families for years to come.
The COO position is intended to be based in Thies, Senegal, with flexibility on timing for relocation if required. Post-COVID-19, the COO will travel regularly (locally and internationally) to meet with other senior leaders in person. He / she / they will also make regular visits to colleagues in the field to supervise on-the-ground operations.
The COO will report to the CEO and supervise a geographically distributed team of 6 direct reports: Senegal Country Director, Mali Country Director, Tanzania Country Director, Director of Logistics, Director of Agriculture, and Knowledge and Operations Manager.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Organizational Strategy:
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- Develop, steward, and implement 2-3 year strategic plans for the organization, in collaboration with key members of the senior leadership team and Board
- Translate the vision and broad organizational objectives into tangible strategies and actionable tactics, supported by manageable processes
- Identify, shape, and optimize systems and processes to enable myAgro’s scale, utilizing the most sustainable business model and products
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- Systems and Operations:
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- Integrate finance, HR, sales, product development, delivery, and other systems to improve efficiency and effectiveness across the organization.
- Professionalize and increase consistency around training, knowledge management, data feedback, and other processes to facilitate scale
- Apply a human-centered, staff-oriented approach to change management to reduce friction during transitions to new systems and processes
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- Team Management, Leadership, and Design:
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- Establish strong organizational design frameworks that support current and future scale and expansion
- Inspire and facilitate high performance across the senior leadership team
- Supervise and mentor Country Directors to ensure excellent program delivery on the ground in each of myAgro’s areas of service
- Build, onboard, train, and mentor team members in support of continuous growth and staff retention and satisfaction
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- Partnerships:
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- Represent the organization externally in pursuit of government, corporate, and other strategic partnership opportunities with the potential to build upon myAgro’s delivery infrastructure and unlock scale across its current and future service areas.
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QUALIFICATIONS
- Strong mission orientation and passion for improving quality of life among families and rural communities experiencing poverty.
- 10+ years of experience managing operations, including experience supporting scale within growing organizations. Experience with supply chain management is a plus.
- Expert cross-functional management and communication skills; 5+ years of experience managing senior leaders and high performance teams.
- 2+ years of experience working in an international context.
- Strong business acumen and results-driven mindset. Because myAgro is a nonprofit organization with a business-minded approach to achieving social goals, candidates with a blend of nonprofit and private sector backgrounds are desirable.
- Fluency in English; willingness to learn French