Chief Operating Officer

About TechnoServe:

At TechnoServe, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to build a better life. For over 50 years, we have given smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs the skills, connections, and confidence to lift themselves out of poverty. We leverage the power of markets and the private sector to create sustainable economic growth to benefit people and the planet. Our unique mix of business solutions, deep knowledge of local contexts, and data-driven insights is helping to fight poverty across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

TechnoServe staff are local-95% are from the countries in which they work. We put a high premium on collaboration and entrepreneurship. We hold ourselves and each other to the highest standards of integrity and transparency. And we focus on delivering lasting impact for our mission.

Position Overview:

As a strategic partner to the CEO and TechnoServe's Executive Leadership Team, The Chief Operating Officer (COO) will be responsible for overseeing program execution and operations around the world. With over 150 active programs in multiple sectors and across more than 30 countries, this is a complex and dynamic position.

By aligning resources and developing systems to professionalize and harmonize field operations in an ever-changing international development landscape, the COO will oversee our regional directors and support our country offices to grow their portfolios while ensuring that we continue to execute high-quality programs that comply with donor regulations and local law while delivering meaningful and lasting change to our clients.

The COO is a member of the Executive Management Team (EMT) and, as such, will help decide a range of important questions that impact the organization as a whole. The COO will be a key leader and ambassador for TechnoServe. The COO will supervise a team of highly experienced, senior professionals spread across several countries and continents. This team currently includes four regional directors, and a global program director.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities:

The COO must successfully achieve strategic objectives by managing quality program implementation, financial and budgeting targets, compliance with policies and procedures, and team development and performance.

• Supervise the executing arm of TechnoServe by leading Regional Directors, who in turn manage Country Directors and Project Managers. Foster a culture of accountability through clear expectations and performance-driven KPIs.
• Develop and implement a systematic approach to consistent delivery of high quality project management and outcomes, including, among others, robust systems and processes for project management, quality assurance and adaptive management.
• Oversee and build on existing systems and processes to ensure that our projects manage their spend consistent with both donor budgets and annual corporate budgets.
• Ensure and improve operational structures that facilitate country offices to execute world class programming consistent with TechnoServe's mission and values.
• Ensure programs operate efficiently and are in compliance with TechnoServe's Code of Conduct, internal policies and procedures, donor/partner requirements and other regulatory/legal requirements in all program geographies.
• With support from our Program Development Group, our Technical Practices, our SI group and our Advancement group, support and incentivize RDs and CDs to cultivate new funders and partners, and to effectively manage existing relationships with partner organizations.
• Lead and participate in all activities of the Senior Management and Executive Teams.
• Working closely with several other EMT members including the Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Transformation Officer, contribute to building team trust, cohesion and integrity in oversight of the organization.
• Provide leadership to develop inter-team communication, collaboration and cohesiveness.
• Lead and support efforts to ensure that TechnoServe continues to attract and retain world class talent.
• Report to the Board of Directors periodically as required and directed by the CEO.
• Lead TechnoServe's annual planning process and contribute to TechnoServe's budgeting and budget updating processes
• Effectively help represent TechnoServe to funders, partners, media and others in coordination with the CEO or others.

Basic Qualifications:

• Master's Degree with a minimum of 15+ years of experience managing international field operations of an international development organization
• Proven project management expertise gained by hands-on project management in remote and difficult geographies
• Experience communicating in multicultural and multilingual settings, including transferring best practices between environments
• Experience developing and implementing systems to professionalize field operations, including common language and standards, that can be adapted locally.
• Private sector and international experience, skills and understanding
• Experienced and skilled manager with a demonstrated ability to lead and manage geographically dispersed teams

Required Languages: English Fluency Required. Fluency in Spanish or French is preferred.

Travel: Frequent travel to the field is an important part of this role. The amount of travel will vary as our needs do and will likely rarely be less than 25% time and may spike up to 50% or more from time to time.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience overseeing both direct implementation projects and Market Systems Development (MSD) projects.
• Experience overseeing field operations that are equivalent to, or larger than TechnoServe's
• Experience in primary agriculture, and/or agri-business, and/or supporting MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Strong analytical skills and business acumen
• Clear and effective communication skills, written and verbal
• Flexible thinker, able to adjust to new situations and realities (given the changing nature of how development work may be funded in the future).
• Understands and demonstrates personal self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and respect for others
• Works effectively and collaboratively with diverse groups of people
• Comfortable working and building consistency in an entrepreneurial, decentralized environment
• Balanced view of risk management and agility

Supervisory Responsibilities: Four Regional Directors and one Global Program Director (currently based in 5 different countries)

We have a preference for candidates who are located within a commutable distance to our Headquarters based in Arlington, Virginia, US.

We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe's vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply.

With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do 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.

We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks.

If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources at recruitment@tns.org or call +1 202 785 4515.