Summary
Date Posted: Saturday, May 11 2024, Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
Root Capital invests in the growth of agricultural businesses so they can transform rural communities. These companies buy crops such as coffee, cocoa or beans from small farmers. With growth, they become impact drivers that can increase incomes, create jobs, empower women and youth, maintain peace and preserve vulnerable ecosystems.
We provide these companies with vital resources: access to capital, business and technical partners, financial training and conservation practices. We work in geographies that are difficult to serve where others do not. To date, we have distributed $1.5 billion to improve the lives of more than ten million people in farming communities.
With twenty years of experience providing financing to small agricultural businesses, Root Capital has learned that sometimes credit alone does not help them grow and strengthen. Therefore, in addition to access to capital, it offers financial, agronomic, business intelligence, climate resilience, and gender and youth training and advice in difficult-to-serve geographies. Companies that receive our advisory services learn how to implement best business and financial practices for smart growth and continued success. We use a practical and participatory learning methodology, since our objective is for the company's staff to acquire new knowledge and skills and be able to implement them in the short term.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, Root Capital currently has partner offices in Costa Rica, Kenya Mexico and Peru. Root Capital's clients are located in more than 10 countries: Mexico and Central America, South America, East and West Africa, as well as Southeast Asia.

Main Goal
Train and advise cooperatives and agricultural SMEs in finance and business management using Root Capital's participatory training methodology. Develop personalized financial advisory for clients based on diagnostic results that positively impacts their economic growth, productivity and resilience.

Main Responsibilities
• Conduct comprehensive agribusiness diagnostic that includes measuring business performance and capacity in various management areas and identifying strengths, weaknesses and potential development opportunities to influence clients' advisory work plans.
• Run specific diagnostics, including but not limited to: internal credit, leadership or governance, to obtain more specific information and develop relevant interventions, when necessary.
• Prepare reports and write responsive recommendations based on diagnostic results; develop a customized annual training plan for the client with their inputs and priorities.
• Provide advisory and training services to clients in accordance with the Root Capital methodology and in coordination with clients on topics that include, among others: financial and business management practices, accounting, administration, financial planning and management, data analysis and data for decision making, cash flows, leadership and organizational capacity, internal control systems, etc.
o Maintain records of workshop attendees, evaluate training results, and prepare activity reports.
o Note: Your role as a facilitator may be at a centralized event or workshop where multiple clients or organizations attend, or conducting a 1:1 session with an individual client in their offices. Advisors may lead sessions or serve as a secondary facilitator supporting the workshop/session in close collaboration with a peer advisor.
• Monitor annual work plans, document and validate the strategies used and advise clients on implementation of said strategies.
• Contribute to Root Capital's organizational impact monitoring by recording activities carried out with clients (using digital data collection tools and Excel), preparing monthly, narrative activity reports and capturing learnings.
• Contribute to external reports with key impact information, including results, challenges, lessons learned, customer success stories and photographs.
• Promote innovation through contributions to the development and piloting of new instruments, methodologies and training tools.
• Understand and effectively integrate gender-inclusive approaches and gender mainstreaming best practices to ensure that women equitably participate in and benefit from Advisory services and, more broadly, promote gender equity among our clients.
This function will work in close coordination with regional coordination and other advisors across countries where Root Capital operates in the Africa region.
Note: You must be willing to conduct consulting services (individually with a single client or multi-client workshops) online/remotely and in person.

Required Qualifications
• University degree in agricultural economics, economics, business management, accounting, agribusiness, business administration or related fields.
• Experience in business administration in agricultural value chains, preference varies depending on geography (DRC: cocoa and coffee; Ghana: local value chains; Kenya: local value chains, macadamia, coffee; Rwanda: coffee).
• 3-4+ years of experience training and/or working with business development in rural agricultural areas and/or with small farmers, agribusinesses and/or cooperatives.
• Knowledge and application of participatory training, adult learning and facilitation methodologies
• Knowledge of management tools including: MS Office Suite (especially Excel), Google Apps (email, shared calendars and collaborative documents), and Zoom.
• Focus on providing high-quality customer-oriented services.
• High capacity for planning, relational and organizational management.
o Ability to meet deadlines
o Ability to synthesize complex concepts and transmit them clearly
o Ability to build trust and rapport with customers effectively
o Ability to assess training needs, plan, direct and execute training responsive to client needs.
• Strong writing skills and ability to prepare reports or other documents as required.
• Team player, works collaboratively to design and deliver services/products.
• Commitment to the development of innovative solutions and results orientation.
• Identification with the mission, vision and leadership principles of Root Capital.
• Interest and commitment to gender equality.
• Ability to travel and work in different parts of the country.
• Ability to manage your work independently with a high degree of responsibility and proactive outreach for support as needed.

Preferred Qualifications
• Knowledge and experience in sustainability standards (e.g. Rainforest Alliance, UTZ, Fairtrade Organic).
• Intermediate-advanced Excel knowledge/skills (e.g., formulas, math functions, logic, lookup and reference, pivot table design, drop-down lists, pivot charts, pivot tables, Power Query, and Pivot)
• Familiarity/Use of dashboards and data visualization tools such as Power BI or Tableau.
• Familiarity and use of digital tools and/or applications for data collection (such as DoForms, KoBoToolbox, SurveyCTO, etc.)
• Experience using digital dashboards/applications in data visualization and analysis for strategic decision making.
Duration
The consulting is carried out in 3-12 month periods. The first period will be three months, allowing for a process of integration and adaptation, carrying out an evaluation at the end of the period to assess the continuity of the consultancy. Each month will take an agreed number of days that will be advised by the BMA Coordinator.

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 36

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Job application procedure
• If interested in the role, please submit a curriculum vitae/resume and compelling cover letter to afradvisoryrecruitment@rootcapital.org .
• The subject of your email should follow this convention: “BMA Advisor- Uganda – Applicant First Name & Last Name”.
• Inquiries that do not follow this convention will not be reviewed.
• The cover letter should explain why you are a fit for Root Capital, your experience working with agri-SMEs and your expertise in business management. Specific examples of your impact and achievements should be included.
Application Process
• 1st Stage: Review of resume and cover letter
• 2nd Stage: First Interview
• 3rd Stage: Technical Assessment
• 4th Stage: Final interview

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