Ethiopia Innovations and Growth Lead Full Time

About One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund equips 5.5 million smallholder farmers to make their farms more productive. Across nine countries that together are home to two-thirds of Africa’s farmers, we provide high-quality farm supplies, tree seedlings, accessible credit, modern agronomic training, and a wide range of other agricultural services. On average, this model enables any farmer to increase their income and assets on supported land by more than 35 percent, while permanently improving their resilience. This is all made possible by our team of 9,000+ full-time staff, drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions.

To learn more, please see our Why Work Here blog post.

One Acre Fund has been working with farmers in the Amhara region of Ethiopia since 2014, with a specific focus on trees since 2018. The Ethiopia program has now expanded into the South Region of Ethiopia in 2024. Our aim with the tree program is to provide not only short-term income opportunities but also long-term benefits, such as soil health improvements and erosion control, so that farmers build resilience over time.

About the Role

The Innovations & Growth Lead will be an essential part of our leadership team in one of One Acre Fund’s fastest-growing country programs. The Ethiopia program is planning to serve over 260,000 farmers in 2026 and grow more than ~24 million trees.

As an Innovations & Growth Lead, you will sit at the intersection of high-level strategy and “last-mile” delivery, shaping the strategy to plant 100 million trees and generate over $100M additional impact for 440,000 Ethiopian farmers by 2030. The role also focuses on initiatives that drive significant reduction of our program costs and lay the foundation for our programs to start earning revenue.

You will take our 5-year vision and translate it into a rigorous “Learning Agenda”: designing the field trials, managing the data, and proving what works before we scale it to 440,000 households. If you are obsessed with evidence-based growth and love solving complex operational puzzles in the field, this is for you!.

Through the Impact department, you will research and test the most impactful agricultural practices, products, and services for our farmers. You will lead a high-performing team of innovators and pilot specialists, while maintaining a strategic “dotted-line” over our Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) team. Reporting directly to the Country Director, you will ensure that every piece of data collected in the field informs our highest-level strategic decisions.

Success in this role is measured by your ability to reach OAF Ethiopia’s 2030 objectives. You will have an exciting opportunity to:

• Support our network of 1,000+ nursery managers to make their investment more sustainable by improving their production, finding new ways to generate income, supporting more youth and women etc. Engineer innovative scalable solutions: Optimize costs and maximize the additional income generated for every farmer we reach.
• Define the next frontier: Move beyond existing programs to identify “what’s next.” You will lead the initial feasibility studies for carbon credit projects or for programs that transition OAF Ethiopia from a traditional NGO model to a revenue-generating organization. You will investigate the regulatory landscape and operational requirements to see if these can become major revenue strams
• Increase our tree seed supply through partnerships with high-impact research centers such as Jimma Research Centre, work directly with producers to optimize their tree seed harvests, drive national adoption of elite, certified varieties

A Typical Day in the Life:

Day 1: The Strategist

• Morning | Roadmap Architecting: You translate the 2030 Vision into a concrete “Learning Agenda,” deciding which new programs (like carbon credits or market access) are ready for a pilot and which aren’t yet viable.
• Mid-day | Evidence Synthesis: You work with the Tree innovation team to turn raw avocado trial data into a “Go/No-Go” recommendation for national expansion.
• Afternoon | Strategic Alignment: You secure buy-in from the Country Director on a new revenue model, ensuring our innovation pipeline is built for financial self-sufficiency.

Day 2: The Operator

• Morning | Reality Testing: You travel to a remote nursery to troubleshoot a pilot in person. You’re interviewing nursery managers to identify why avocado grafting success rates are lagging and pivoting the training approach on the spot.
• Afternoon | Fidelity Check: You audit the execution of tree seed supply trials with a major research center, ensuring the data is robust enough to justify a $500k investment.
• Evening | Mentorship: On the drive back, you coach the Pilot specialist, helping them move from “monitoring activities” to “owning the impact model”.

Responsibilities

• Translate our strategy into action: Lead the development of the multi-year impact strategy and translate it into specific field interventions in your department and across the organization.
• Drive the “Learning Agenda”: Define the critical questions we need to answer each year. You will decide which new services or products enter our pipeline based on potential for scale and ROI, then set SMART objectives for your team. For example, explore the possibility of adding high-value trees such as apple mango and higher % of avocado in the south region while keeping in mind the challenges of managing them in a decentralized nursery setup.
• End-to-End Trial Management:  Design multi-year impact models using relevant program data, oversee the full lifecycle of field trials, empower the impact team to research and implement impactful activities, from initial hypothesis and budgeting to designing the operational workflow and training field teams. For example: you will determine the treatment and control groups for a specific trial, identify sample size, design expected results & analysis framework, ensure the trial/pilot is implemented on the ground well, collect data on a regular basis, analyze and report, in time for decision making.
• Evidence-Based Decision Making: Partner with our M&E (Monitoring & Evaluation) teams to analyze trial data and drive high-level “Go/No-Go” recommendations for the Country Director.
• Champion the professional evolution of your direct reports, providing the coaching and clarity needed to turn high-level organizational vision into rigorous, field-level results.

Career Growth and Development

We have a strong culture of constant learning, and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

• A proven track record with a minimum of 7 years of experience in managing complex projects or operations, or social enterprise programs in emerging markets, e.g., in agricultural innovation, extension, research & development, marketing, product development, consulting or MEL in agriculture, public health, or education (including 3+ years in one of our countries of operation).
• Experience identifying strategic gaps and designing “Learning Agendas”—knowing exactly which questions we need to answer through field trials before committing to a national-scale rollout.
• Field-First Mindset: Significant experience living and working in rural or “last-mile” settings, with a deep understanding of the associated operational challenges.
• Experimental Design & “Piloting” Mindset: Proven ability to design and execute field trials or pilot programs. You understand how to set up a “test vs. control” environment to see if a new intervention actually drives impact, you understand KPIs and success metrics and you have the judgment to adjust as needed when challenges come.
• Evaluation Frameworks: Analyze qualitative/quantitative field data, and turn raw results into a “Go/No-Go” recommendation for leadership. A plus if experience working with Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) teams to design surveys.
• Experience managing large teams (5-10+ team members) and delivering projects successfully.
• English required, Amharic preferred.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Job Location

• Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with regular visits to our field areas of operations (around 35% of the time).

Benefits

• Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits

Eligibility

One Acre Fund can support a work permit for this role. However, nationals of (or those with an extensive professional background and work history in) our countries of operation are preferred.

Application Deadline

25 July 2026. Please note that we hire on a rolling basis which means that applications are reviewed and processed on a continuous basis until a hire is made.

How To Apply

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. 

Application Link: https://oneacrefund.org/vacancies/ethiopia-innovations-and-growth-lead

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.