Land O’Lakes Venture37 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping communities around the world build economies by strengthening agriculture from farm-to-fork, helping businesses grow, and linking farmers to markets. Since our start in 1981, we have been leveraging nearly 100 years of expertise in crop inputs, agricultural insights, dairy and animal nutrition from our close affiliate, Land O’Lakes, Inc., a farmer-owned agribusiness committed to fulfilling its purpose of feeding human progress.
Our team is made up of nearly 350 employees who are committed to market-led approaches, and passionate about collaborating locally to create lasting inclusive economic growth. By unlocking the potential of agriculture for the last 36 years, the lives of more than 3 million people have been transformed through nearly 300 programs in more than 80 countries.
Project/Proposal Summary:
Venture37 seeks a Chief of Party (COP) for an anticipated USAID Ghana Market Systems and Resilience Activity. This activity will facilitate the development of a competitive market space that is inclusive, resilient and sustainable in the provision of goods and services demanded by actors. The approach for this activity will help identify and minimize the root causes of market failure for barriers that disadvantage the vulnerable, women and youth and exclude them from economic opportunities. This activity will also create incentives for actors to invest in development and sustaining productive relationships for the efficient delivery of goods and services and an improved enabling and regulatory environment for agricultural sector growth. This activity will target solutions including: an inclusive financial system for the rural poor as well as SMEs to have access to finance across sectors; address the inefficiencies in the inputs distribution system; establish strong and transparent relationships between actors, etc. This activity will also identify energy interventions that can increase agricultural productivity, competitiveness, and incomes; and complement production or postharvest processing, supply chain and value-added activities.
Position Summary:
The COP will provide strategic vision, overall leadership and technical direction to the project. The COP will ensure the project is planned and executed with quality, accountability and measurable impact. The COP will be the primary liaison with USAID and will manage project staff and implementing partners to ensure proper reporting, financial management and compliance. The COP is expected to provide a vision and technical leadership for project interventions and must be skilled in market system evaluation.
Primary Responsibilities:
• Provide dynamic and strategic leadership to the design and implementation of the project activities and oversee program planning, monitoring, reporting, evaluation and overall learning;
• Oversee project finances, planning, administration, compliance, reporting and M&E;
• Ensure successful project implementation and achievement of results on time and within budget;
• Ensure optimal use of human, financial, and physical resources to successfully meet project milestones, objectives, deliverables, and targets;
• Ensure mechanisms are in place to monitor and adapt project implementation, including progress toward achieving objectives and targets with high-quality and on-time performance as well as changes in the market system that may be exogenous to project activities;
• Ensure timely, high-quality, and complete submission of work plans, quarterly and annual reports, financial reports, and any other reports required by USAID;
• Ensure that all activities are undertaken in full compliance with Venture37 standard operating procedures, USAID policies and regulations, and national policies and laws;
• Represent project both internally and externally to other donors, stakeholders, implementing partners, and government counterparts;
• Ensure that gender equality and socially-inclusive approaches are integrated into programming and effectively implemented; identify learnings on a regular basis, refining the design as needed to improve social inclusion across project activities and within the market system;
• Promote sustainability of project activities with effective networking, linkages to other programs, capacity building of project staff, and institutional strengthening of implementing partners and community-based organizations;
• Create a collaborative organizational culture and facilitate exchange of knowledge for cross-organizational learning.
Skills and Qualifications:
• A minimum of 10 years’ experience designing, implementing, and managing large, complex projects in/for developing countries, of which at least five years has been spent in the position of COP, Deputy COP, or a similar role of a market systems development project.
• Bachelor’s degree in economics, agribusiness, finance, international development, agronomy, horticulture, or a closely related field is required. Master’s degree preferred.
• Depth and breadth of technical and management expertise in market systems analysis and resilience strengthening, particularly in Ghana or similar environment.
• Strong leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills, including proven ability to develop and communicate a common vision among diverse partners and lead a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team.
• Experience in systems and enabling environment strengthening, capacity building, service delivery, adaptive management, and quality improvement is required.
• Demonstrated ability to create and maintain effective working relations and coalition building among host country government personnel, stakeholders, NGO partners, and international donor agencies.
• Strong interpersonal, writing, and oral presentation skills in English required.
• Ability to work independently and manage a high-volume work flow.
The position described above is contingent upon activity award.
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. No phone calls will be accepted.
Land O’Lakes never requests money or payment from candidates for any position type. Please report any such requests to Land O’Lakes.