AGRO is a five-year activity funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Chemonics International, a global consulting and international development firm. The purpose of AGRO is to accelerate the economic development of rural Ukrainian communities with the greatest need through a better governed agricultural sector that encourages more productive, modern, and profitable micro, small, and medium agricultural enterprises (MSMEs) that are successfully integrated into competitive markets both in Ukraine and internationally.

AGRO operates on the basis of the market system conceptual approach (https://beamexchange.org). 

 

The Productivity and Market Access Team Lead will support implementation of activities under AGRO Objective 1 Productivity and Market Access in Target Value Chains Improved. S/he will lead the team of four people and manage an array of short-term technical consultants, subawards and contracts aimed at improving systemic constraints to productivity and market access for Ukrainian agricultural MSMEs, provide technical leadership and bring in global innovations to help Ukrainian agribusiness solve systemic constraints to growth. 

 

• Oversee the development, update and implementation of the AGRO implementation plan as related to agri-MSME productivity, market access and rural development tasks, ensuring application of market systems development approach. 

• Ensure that resources are planned timely and appropriately and in consultation with other team leads and are available to implement the tasks. 

• Apply adaptive management approach to implementing the activities under Productivity and Market Access component;

• Oversee the achievement of relevant targets set forth in the AGRO Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) plan;

• Manage the Productivity and Market Access Team, provide overall guidance and conduct team staff performance evaluations.

• Provide oversight and quality control of scopes of work for short-term local and international consultants, requests for subawards and contracts implemented under AGRO Strategic Investment Fund (SIF) and other programmatic procurements.

• Support collaboration, learning and adapting and knowledge management efforts by promoting the capture and sharing of lessons learned, new innovations and best practices and participating in periodic meetings with USAID projects, other donors and government partners, and market actors. 

• Closely work with AGRO Collaboration, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) Team to produce content for AGRO learning and dissemination materials (e.g., best practices, lessons learned, success stories etc.); 

• Ensure preparation of high quality inputs to regular and ad hoc reports in line with the requirements of USAID Cooperative Agreement (e.g., quarterly and annual reports);

• Identify new programmatic opportunities related to MSME productivity and access to market in selected value chains, promote appropriate collaboration with the stakeholders, identify interventions and scale-up best practices in relevant sectors.

• Provide leadership for behavior change among the stakeholders, as well as communication tasks, ensuring interventions are geared towards system-level measurable impact and results.

• Advise AGRO Chief of Party (COP) on matters related to MSME productivity and market access.

• Use Microsoft Teams and/or other software as needed to carry out tasks and collaborate with other activity staff.

• Contribute to collection and analysis of the relevant Monitoring and Evaluation (MEL) data. 

• Comply with Chemonics’ standards of business conduct. 

• Assume any other duties as assigned by the AGRO Chief of Party (COP).

 

One-year fixed term employment agreement with possible extension each work year up to the end of the Project implementation (November 14, 2024), subject to availability of respective tasks in the successive Annual Work Plans of the Project.

 

Productivity and Market Access Team Lead is a member of AGRO Senior Management Team and leads the Productivity and Market Access Team under a direct supervision of, and reports to the COP or DCOP or his/her designee, or other person(s) as designated by the Chief of Party.

 

Office location: Kyiv.

 

• At least ten years’ previous experience in agribusiness or leadership role on a donor funded agriculture development projects 

• Demonstrated experience in achieving concrete results in agribusiness or agricultural development projects. Please note that providing “trainings” does not count as a result. 

• USAID or previous donor experience is required.

• Proven ability to manage and implement work using tools such as MS Project or other Office 365 Suite of programs (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote, Power BI, etc.).

• Well versed in project management professional norms (www.pmi.org) including mastery of work breakdown structure creation, scheduling, etc. 

• Firm understanding of the market systems development approach (https://beamexchange.org)  

• Superior interpersonal, public speaking, writing, presentation, and team building skills

• Undergraduate degree required; advanced degree preferred.

• Native speaker of Ukrainian.  

• English sufficient for professional purposes and to understand written communications related to the work of the AGRO Activity such as emails. 

• Experienced user of MS Office 365 applications. 

Demonstrated success working in a multinational, multilingual team under pressure and tight deadlines.

 

Compliance with Chemonics International’s standards of business conduct is required. The successful candidate agrees to perform her/his duties faithfully and to the best of her/his ability, to comply with local laws and customs, and to conduct her/himself in a manner consistent with Chemonics’ standards of business conduct and appropriate to Ukraine. Chemonics’ standards of business conduct are available in Chemonics’ field office or upon request. If a candidate encounters ethical questions or issues when interacting with Chemonics, such as conflicts of interest, bribery or kickbacks, gifts, plagiarism, etc., please consult with the AGRO Activity’s COP at [email protected].

 

Send electronic submissions to [email protected] by July 19, 2021. Please submit your CV and cover letter with "Productivity and Market Access Team Lead" in the subject line; please do not forget to additionally indicate your name in the subject line of your e-mail. No telephone inquiries, please. Only finalists will be contacted.

 

Chemonics is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in its selection and employment practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, or other non-merit factors.