Position description
The Senior Technical Director, Agriculture & Resilience is a senior management position based in Harare, Zimbabwe, supporting strategic new business opportunities, managing a portfolio of programs in Zimbabwe, contributing to CNFA’s thought leadership in the field of Agriculture & Resilience, managing coordination among programs and CNFA’s representation in Zimbabwe. The incumbent will provide technical and programmatic leadership to a portfolio of CNFA’s programs in Zimbabwe and will identify and contribute to strategic new business opportunities in Zimbabwe and the southern Africa region. The incumbent will document and share successful and innovative approaches from CNFA’s programs to raise the profile of CNFA’s work in Zimbabwe, inform technical design for proposals, and provide opportunities for cross-project learning. This position is responsible for client management and developing strategic partnerships to position the organization for new business opportunities, successful program implementation, and innovative collaborations.
Specific Responsibilities
Program Management:
Oversee a portfolio of programs in Zimbabwe, including but not limited to the following duties:
- Supervise, motivate, mentor, and build capacity of the Program Management Unit team members and field-based staff;
- Ensure efficient start-up, close-out, and ongoing program operations in compliance with CNFA policies and procedures and donor requirements;
- Ensure strong financial management of programs, monitoring program spending, budgets, controls, and processes together with the Finance team;
- Support program monitoring and evaluation;
- Ensure that programs have adequate and sufficient staff and consultant resources in place to be successful;
- Manage quality control of program reporting and deliverables;
- Manage financial, performance, and reputational risk on programs. Collaborate with relevant departments to provide technical support from CNFA’s global resources and address program performance, compliance, HR, and partner and client management issues as they arise;
- Ensure that programs deliver high-quality and innovative technical programming, meeting donor expectations and achieving program results;
- Support COPs and technical teams with annual work planning, conducting programmatic research studies, and continually reviewing and strengthening implementation strategies, activities, and program design;
- Manage donor/client relationships;
- Together with the COPs, manage relationships and performance of implementing partners.
Representation and Coordination:
- Manage sharing of staff and resources across CNFA’s programs in Zimbabwe;
- Cultivate new relationships with potential donors and partners; build strong working relationships with current private sector and implementing partners;
- Together with COPs, ensure that CNFA is compliant with GoZ PVO requirements and maintains collaborative relationships with relevant ministries and officials;
- Identify and develop innovative approaches and tools that can be utilized across CNFA’s programs in Zimbabwe and globally. Promote the sharing and adoption of successful approaches, tools, and best practices across programs. Incorporate program learning into new business efforts;
- Support the development of CNFA’s thought leadership in priority technical areas, including promotion of CNFA’s work to outside stakeholders;
- Serve as a technical and regional resource within the organization.
New Business:
- Contribute to strategic planning around CNFA new business priorities;
- Build and maintain relationships with donor representatives, private sector partners/clients, thought leaders, and potential implementing partners;
- Identify and cultivate new business opportunities, building on in-country relationships and knowledge from CNFA’s existing programs;
- Lead the development of concept notes and RFI responses for priority opportunities;
- Serve as the Capture Manager for prioritized opportunities, including pre-positioning, determining the competitive landscape together with the proposal manager to inform go/no go decisions, developing a partnership strategy, relationship management, and developing a resourcing plan for the opportunity;
- Contribute to technical design and strategic proposal management for prioritized opportunities; and Actively support CNFA’s development of responsive and innovative proposals by serving as a proposal reviewer and contributor.
Job Requirements
Qualifications:
- Master’s degree in Agriculture, Agribusiness or related field required;
- Minimum ten (10) years of experience in International Development backstopping complex international development projects/programs focused on enterprise development, agriculture and/or agribusiness;
- A minimum of five (5) years of experience in management and at least five (5) years field experience preferred;
- Experience with and knowledge of USAID (and/or other donor) program planning cycles, agreement rules and regulations, and reporting;
- Strong budgeting and analytical capacity;
- Excellent conceptual, verbal and written communication skills;
- Excellent program management skills;
- Strong conflict management skills;
- Strong interpersonal and negotiation skills;
- Ability to develop strong trusting relationships in order to gain support and achieve results;
- Ability to manage employees in multiple locations;
- Ability to manage multiple conflicting priorities;
- Ability to work in an environment with international objectives;
- Ability to be flexible and interpersonal skills to interact with employees at all levels.
Application instructions
Please be sure to indicate you saw this position on Globaljobs.org
