Senior Manager, Agribusiness Systems

Senior Manager, Agribusiness Systems

Palladium Group

Washington, D.C. or London

This Opportunity:

Palladium’s Inclusive Growth and Natural Capital (IGNC) Practice is seeking an outstanding agribusiness systems professional to join us as Senior Manager. This person would specifically lead Palladium’s delivery of a new project under its Green Commodities sub-portfolio. Under this project, Palladium is supporting a multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation to launch a new initiative targeting regenerative agriculture across the globe. The Senior Manager will support the design and implementation of capacity building support services to the client’s global regenerative agriculture partners through grants, capacity building, and advisory services. This project will leverage innovative advisory models, blended finance approaches, and industry wide collaboration.

Experienced Senior Managers will have opportunities to support other units within the firm in our collaborative and agile environment and will be expected to travel for project delivery and business development pursuits. Typically, Senior Managers serve as thought leaders, proposal champions, and Project Directors.

You and Your Career:

If you are a problem-solver, collaborator, and doer, and you have expertise in agribusiness, natural resource management, corporate led agribusiness and sustainability management, public-private partnerships, and incubation of innovative business models we are interested in hearing from you.

We are a learning organization and provide growth opportunities from the start.  We pride ourselves on giving you the freedom, resources, and guidance to chart a fulfilling career!

Reporting Lines:

• This role will report to a Director depending on project assignment;  
• Sr. Managers typically supervise one or more Associates, Sr. Associates, or Managers;  
• The position is flexible but we prefer London or Washington with an expectation to be physically present 3 days per week; 
• The position entails travel, at approximately 20% time and for periods averaging 1- 2 weeks.

Primary Roles and Responsibilities: 

Project Management

• Providing advisory services to partners through org assessments to improve business models, service offerings, and market-informed approaches;
• Supporting partners to secure financing through grant applications, blended finance opportunities, etc.;
• Supporting partners to develop robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks;
• Manages delivery of programmatic components of large projects, or series of smaller projects, with responsibility for work planning, budget management, project deliverables, client relations, and staff supervision;  
• Manages project changes including project scope, schedule, and costs to keep project plans accurate and updated;  
• Oversees and ensures quality of the development of reports, budgets, workplans, proposals and other outputs for internal and external stakeholders, paying attention to the quality of results and project delivery and helping teams make adjustments as needed.  

Other responsibilities could include:

Business Development 

• Identifies new clients and sales opportunities, lead or contribute to sales and proposal efforts, and engage existing and potential partners to continue and expand engagements;  
• Provides technical leadership in the positioning with clients and preparation of proposals.

Technical & Thought Leadership 

• Leads technical work in topic areas including research, analysis, and publication of technical reports, case studies, policy and program approaches, and technical tools on related topics to expand existing lines of business;  
• Maintains an industry presence as a thought leader by publishing regularly in peer reviewed journals and/or by presenting at annual conferences and meetings;  
• Collaborates with peers to identify new research approaches and potential markets for those services;  
• Identifies, builds, and maintains relationships with partners and consultants that provide technical expertise to both proposals and/or projects within their respective technical topic area(s).  

Leadership/Other 

• Contributes to efforts at the portfolio to build team cohesiveness, lead, mentor, train, and motivate staff to ensure cooperation, project efficiency, and boost morale;  
• Leads teams and client engagement to implement new work including assignment and management of staff to new activities, initiatives, or projects;  
• Acts as main point of contact for regular communication for all relevant technical subject matter stakeholders, both internal and external to Palladium;  
• Performs other duties as assigned.  

Essential Criteria:

• Substantial work experience in one or more of the following topic areas: agriculture/agribusiness, agricultural sourcing/supply chain development, corporate sustainability, market led development;
• Experience with private sector, private sector-led development market systems and sourcing/supply chain development;  
• Substantial work experience managing multiple complex projects/assignments in a time-sensitive environment;  
• Excellent written and oral communication skills (in English) as demonstrated by speaking engagements and/or written documents (PowerPoint & MS Word); 
• Experience in rural development and/or developing countries;  
• Experience networking and building partnerships across private sector stakeholders (including off-takers, traders, processors) and the development community (including donors, implementing partners, cooperating country organizations, and governmental institutions); 
• Excellent team management skills in a complex and fast-paced environment;  
• Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to interact professionally with culturally diverse staff, clients, and consultants;  
• Extensive experience with conceptualizing and making presentations to small and large groups (over 30 individuals), both in-person and virtually;  
• Demonstrated strong financial skills for generating, interpreting, and analyzing financial reports and forecasts.  

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience working in a developing country context (LatAm, Africa);
• Professional working proficiency in another language, with priority given to Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Arabic.

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