| Description |
The Rainforest Alliance’s Sustainable Agriculture unit works with farmers on the implementation of the standards of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) for protecting wildlife, ecosystems, workers’ rights, and promoting the well-being of farmers, their families and communities. Farms that meet the SAN’s rigorous environmental, social and economic standards are awarded the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal. The SAN standards are applied by producers of major commodity crops (including bananas, pineapple, coffee, cocoa, tea, citrus and flowers) that profoundly affect the economies, environments, cultures and politics of tropical countries. Today more than 900,000 farms in 44 countries are certified and Rainforest Alliance Certified products are widely available in mainstream markets.
Position Summary:
The Senior Manager, Coffee is responsible for managing the Rainforest Alliance’s coffee program across Africa, Asia and Latin America. This includes delivering grant projects according to work plans and budgets, coordinating with field consultants and staff, identifying and supporting local partner organizations and maintaining relationships with corporate, government and foundation donors, the coffee sector and its stakeholders. The position will collaborate with other Managers and Directors
in Sustainable Agriculture in creating new opportunities and exploring innovations in agriculture and shifting the world’s thinking and action towards sustainable agriculture, particularly coffee. The Senior Manager will also coordinate closely with and support other Rainforest Alliance units in markets, traceability, communications, development, marketing and impact monitoring, as well as building links with TREES, Climate and Evaluation & Research, and Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and its certification bodies. The Senior Manager will support the work of the Director, Program Design & Development in the research and preparation of new coffee projects.
Responsibilities:
- Take full responsibility for global coffee program implementation, deliverables and budgetary execution; prepare donor reports as per contractual commitments and manage relationships with donors; comply with internal Rainforest Alliance procedures; act as project manager for assigned projects; coordinate with regional managers/project managers to define strategies and for the implementation of the coffee projects in their regions;
- Supervise Rainforest Alliance’s implementing partners and coordinate with consultants on agreement scope of work and subsequent deliverables in the region as needed; support their work with farmers groups and other stakeholders through providing information and guidance, and ensure that they have the necessary personnel, tools, materials and financial resources; manage subgrants and/or consulting agreements;
- Maintain active dialogue with the broad group of coffee stakeholders internationally, and in producing countries specifically roasters, exporters, government bodies, national extension services, technical partners);
- Provide strategic management to Sustainable Agriculture: conduct regular risk assessment of the coffee program and manage it adaptively; maintain critical information exchange with the Traceability Unit; manage relationships with
industry partners and ensure their investment in Rainforest Alliance certification programs; coordinate with the Rainforest Alliance Markets team (marketing and corporate engagement) to plan supply and demand, manage supply
data and support its relations with consumer brands;
- Develop new projects to support implementing our strategy and where possible creating linkages with other Rainforest Alliance divisions (forestry, climate) for landscape level impact; coordinate with the Director, Program Design & Development and the Development team to write and present new proposals to donors;
- Coordinate with SAN’s accredited Certification Bodies to plan and implement activities preparing for auditing for compliance with the Sustainable Agriculture Standard;
- Coordinate with SAN’s Secretariat to plan and organize stakeholders technical workshops to contextualize the Sustainable Agriculture Standard in producing countries;
- Coordinate with Rainforest Alliance’ Evaluation & Research Team to monitor and record results from our activities in collaboration with our implementing partners and research institutes;
- Support the Rainforest Alliance Communications, Marketing and Education unit to obtain information on project impacts and human stories of successes, and communications activities in countries of operation;
Organize and host visits by Rainforest Alliance staff and others such as journalist tours and donor visits to projects; and
- Other duties as assigned.
Supervisory Responsibilities:
None at this time though this will change in the foreseeable future.
Qualifications:
- Master’s degree in Agriculture, Natural Resources Management, Business Administration or another tropical agriculture-related field;
- Minimum 10 years relevant experience;
- First-hand knowledge of the concepts of sustainable agriculture and knowledge of the coffee industry, tropical commodity buying gained from direct experience;
- Understanding of business and value chains and experience in working with companies as well as farmers;
- Demonstrated experience in project management, including in managing budgets; project management experience within NGOs preferred;
- Demonstrated leadership and ability to manage remote staff in developing countries: at least five years direct work experience;
- Effective interpersonal and communication skills, with ability to operate efficiently in multi institutional relationships, and to communicate with farmers, government ministers, donor representatives and/or company executives;
- Excellent organizational skills, ability to work independently as well as in a team environment, assess priorities and multi-task with strong attention to detail;
- Administrative efficiency, with ability to track project progress and prepare timely reports, and competence in main computer software programs;
- Demonstrated professional capability in written and spoken English and at least one other language (e.g., French, Spanish, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesian), and
- Willingness and ability to travel up to 25 percent of the time.
Only applicants authorized to work in the locations listed above will be considered.
To apply: Send CV, cover letter and salary history to Human Resources, Rainforest Alliance, Warnford Court, 29 Throgmorton
Street, London, EC2N 2AT; E-mail: ukpersonnel@ra.org. If emailing, use the following format in the subject line: first name and last name, job title of position you are applying for.
The RainforestAlliance is an equal opportunity employer.
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