Marketing and Trade Director, Tanzania

For over 50 years and in 146 countries, ACDI/VOCA has empowered people in developing and transitional nations to succeed in the global economy. Based in Washington, D.C., ACDI/VOCA is a nonprofit international development organization that delivers technical and management assistance in agribusiness, financial services, enterprise development, community development and food security in order to promote broad-based economic growth and vibrant civil society. ACDI/VOCA currently has approximately 34 projects in 26 countries and revenues of approximately $174 million.

Marketing and Trade Director, Tanzania

ACDI/VOCA is currently seeking a long-term Marketing and Trade Director for a multi-year USAID-funded market development program in Tanzania. The project will have a strong focus on sustainable, private-sector driven market development in several agricultural value chains, including rice and maize. This position is sbased in Morogoro with regular travel to other regions and Dar es Salaam.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the Marketing and Trade Component and staff, providing technical and managerial oversight and leadership, contributing to the design and implementation oversight of annual work plans and strategies, and ensuring that interventions respond to identified market opportunities and create sustainable development outcomes.
• Create and implement strategies for developing local, national, and inter-regional (where appropriate) market systems for rice and maize. As part of this, identify sustainable and scalable technical models of aggregation and linkages between buyers, suppliers, and service providers; understand product trends and map value chain stakeholders
• Provide leadership in identifying market opportunities, understanding evolving market trends, conducting targeted research on new/potential market channels, business models, or partnerships, and in developing and implementing strategies for trading.
• Make recommendations to senior leadership for creative solutions to development problems, new lines of work and promising partnerships, scaling up or scaling down interventions as a result of continuous learning, and regularly contribute to strategic planning, problem solving, and collaboration across all project components.
• Develop partnerships with key commercial stakeholders, coordinate business to business (B2B) meetings, and engage in relationship building with key value chain actors (e.g. buyers, agro-input dealers, aggregators, millers, processors, farmer associations /nucleus farmers, etc)
• Facilitate collaborations with value chain actors and partners to leverage investment in agricultural production, processing and access to modern technologies
• Review project monitoring and evaluation requirements for the marketing component, ensuring performance against required indicators; as part of this effort, develop a culture of learning and adaptive programming within your team that encourages flow of information and reflection to maximize performance and continuous improvement.

Qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s degree or similar qualification in agribusiness, business, marketing, economics or development studies is required. A Master’s degree or similar qualification is desirable.
• A minimum of 7 years hands-on experience implementing private sector-oriented agricultural market development efforts is required. Some experience working directly for private agricultural companies (e.g. in trade, sourcing, marketing, etc) is a plus, but not required. Must have demonstrated experience designing market development programs that reach poor rural households and contribute to development objectives.
• Multiple years of prior supervisory experience and component/departmental leadership
• Direct experience in marketing, export development and relationship management.
• Knowledge of the commercial agricultural sector in Tanzania, along with the institutions, organizations and businesses that provide value chain support services.
• Experience in business strategy development with a focus on agricultural market/value chain analysis.
• Demonstrated commitment to adaptive management – analyzing the success of interventions and project activities using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data/information, and then improving project intervention models and staff performance.
• Written and spoken fluency in English and Kiswahili

HOW TO APPLY:

Please apply online at http://acdivoca.bosmaxhire.net/cp/?E5556D361D43515B7E59192F77501E680C627B4D. No phone calls please. Only finalists contacted. Women and minorities encouraged to apply. EOE.