Supervisor: CEO
Location: New York, NY; Miami FL; San Salvador, El Salvador or Bogota, Colombia
Start Date: ASAP
Contract: Full-Time Employee
Travel: up to 50%
About Acceso:
Acceso is a non-profit 501(c)(3)social enterprise headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. They combine philanthropy and social business, opening the door for tens of thousands of farmers in developing countries to alleviate rural poverty and facilitate a path to fairly participate in high value domestic and international markets. Their pioneering social enterprise model creates ‘farmer first’ food systems by providing smallholders a ‘one-stop-shop’ to remove all the barriers they face in trading with these markets. This holistic ‘seed to market’ approach is revolutionizing food systems in developing countries to create the world’s most sustainable and impactful model to alleviate poverty at scale. Acceso has built these smallholder focused food systems in Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, and Guatemala, and is planning to expand to Mexico, Dominican Republic and Honduras in the years to come.
About this role:
Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer, the COO is a member of Acceso’s Global Leadership Team. Specifically, the COO will be a collaborative and engaging leader overseeing the seed-to-market model, lead field innovations and ensure field programs are implemented with the highest degree of impact. With the hands-on support of a full team of country General Managers (GMs) and operational teams, and in close collaboration with Acceso’s Chief Commercial Officer, the COO´s primary responsibilities include:
Key responsibilities:
- Leadership / Team Engagement &Relationship Management: Fully engage the team of GMs and the operational teams to foster positive collaboration and alignment of Acceso’s mission into daily work life. Develop positive and collaborative relationships across the organization, supporting enterprises and reinforcing Acceso’s pioneering model of social enterprise programs based on financial and social outcomes. Positions that report to this role include:
- General Managers and country teams
- Programs Director and programs team
- Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Director and MEL team
- Data and Systems Director and Data and Systems team
- Market strategy implementation: Oversee the implementation of the strategy developed for each key market, and pivot as necessary to achieve the strategic goals. This includes key performance indicators such as: farmer targets, impact results, buyers, and achieving farmer sales and financial results.
- Implementation of Acceso’s agriprogram in each market: Coordinate Acceso’s farmer recruitment, training, technical assistance, input strategy (including credit) and purchase operations, to achieve farmer targets in number and quality (impact) and market needs in volume and quality.
- Aggregation, processing and logistics: Ensure that farmers’ products find their way to markets by managing aggregation, processing and logistics operations.
- Supply-demand matching: Make sure the sales are at the level necessary to absorb farmer supply and that farmer supply is at the level necessary to satisfy markets.
- Best Practices / Next Practices: Lead Acceso’s field innovations, including innovative climate-smart, regenerative practices, Acceso’s ag-tech solutions (Extensio) and any other innovations needed to expand and deepen their impact.
- MEL: Oversee the work of the MEL area in Acceso, to ensure results are being measured, analyzed, understood and lessons integrated in stronger future operations.
- Data and systems: Oversee all data and systems at Acceso ensuring systems are integrated and effectively serve operations and programs teams to drive efficiency, growth and impact.
Supported by a relentless team, the COO will match that drive and bring their strategic vision and tactical execution to the forefront making Acceso the world’s most sustainable and impactful model to alleviate poverty at scale. Expectations for initial key deliverables and long-term critical success factors:
- 30 Days: Establish relationships and understand the players; observe, absorb, connect-the-dots and gain a thoughtful understanding of the operations.
- 60 Days: Visit all operations, take over day to day management of teams and direct reports, develop project plan focused on immediate areas of opportunity.
- 90 Days: Build project plan for the next nine months and take control on organizing the teams and know Acceso operations as well or better than the CEO.
| Humility / Servant Leader / EQ | Collaboration | Team Player |
| Budget Planning & Management | Business Acumen | Financial Stewardship |
| Strategic Planning | Tactical Implementation | Entrepreneurial |
| KPI and Data-Driven Metrics | Commercial Commerce | Attention to Detail |
| Relationship Management | Change Management | Confident Communicator |
| Tech Savvy/MS Office Suite | Solution-Oriented | Prepare/Present Presentations |
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Agronomy or Engineering with relevant agribusiness and field experience or related field of study or equivalent from an accredited college or university. MBA highly desired.
- Minimum ten (10) years of field operations management, specifically in agriculture and food systems, including a proven record of implementing systems and streamlining processes and minimum five (5) years serving as part of a high-performing top leadership team/C-suite.
- Experience with international teams and socially mission lead organization(s) a plus, including diverse experience with a variety of stakeholders; farmers, technical teams, engineers, agribusinesses, and financial partners.
- Ability to travel up to 50% to LATAM, the Caribbean and emerging geographies and spend necessary time in businesses (otherwise can be remote).
- Fluency in English and Spanish; French or Haitian Créole a plus.
- The ideal candidate will be based in New York, NY; Miami FL; San Salvador, El Salvador or Bogota, Colombia.
Application Instructions:
For immediate and confidential consideration please contact: Christine “Chris” Jeffreys, Executive Search Consultant ([email protected]; mobile: +1-714-403-1513)
For more information about Acceso and careers with us, please visit Acceso.org/careers.
Acceso is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability and all other protected classes.