Program Manager

About You

Required Skills & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree with 7-10 years; Master’s Degree with 5-7 years (Master’s degree preferred) in agriculture and rural development, natural resources, agro-economics, economics, ecology, business administration or other related discipline.
• At least five years’ professional experience – ideally including experience in the private sector – in one or more of the following areas: coffee processing, SME development, project or business management, finance, or engineering.
• Proven experience managing people and program/projects successfully.
• Solid understanding of business principles and rural development.
• Excellent computer skills, particularly the ability to conduct detailed analysis in Excel and prepare reports in Power Point and MS Word.
• Excellent communication skills, written and oral, in both English and Amharic (knowledge of Afan Oromo is a strong added advantage).

 Success Factors:

Competency is a combination of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) directly related to successful performance on the job.

Core Competencies include:

• Integrity and honesty: Is widely trusted; seen as a direct, truthful individual; presents truthful information in an appropriate and helpful manner; keeps confidences; admits mistakes; does not misrepresent himself or herself for personal gain.
• Team Work/ Relationships:  Works co-operatively and flexibly with other members of the team with a full understanding of the role to be played as a team member and/or leader, to achieve a common goal.  Ability to build and maintain effective relationships and networks.
• Learning attitude:  Proactively takes advantage of opportunities to learn. Actively identifies new areas for learning; applies and shares new knowledge and skill appropriately.
• Diversity/Inclusiveness:  Demonstrates an understanding and appreciation for diversity and supports diversity efforts. Interacts effectively with and inclusively with people of all races, cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, religions, ages, and genders.
• Communication:  Expresses ideas effectively in individual and group situations. Listens effectively; shares information, ideas and arguments; adjusts terminology, language and communication modes to the needs of the audience; ensures accurate understanding; acts in a way that facilitates open exchange of ideas and information; uses appropriate non-verbal communication.
• Decision making/Problem Solving:  Is able to analyze situations, diagnose problems, identify the key issues, establish and evaluate alternative courses of action and produce a logical, practical and acceptable solution.  Is able to make effective decisions on a day-to-day basis, taking ownership of decisions, demonstrating sound judgement in escalating issues where necessary.
• Results Oriented/ High Quality Deliverables:  Stays focused on the efforts necessary to achieve quality results consistent with programmatic or departmental goals. Demonstrates the ability to achieve effective results; works persistently to overcome obstacles to goal achievement. Accomplishes tasks by considering all areas involved, no matter how small; showing concern for all aspects of the job; accurately checking processes and tasks.
• Planning & Time Management:  Establishes a course of action for self and/or others to accomplish a specific goal. Effectively plans, schedules, prioritizes and controls activities; identifies, integrates and orchestrates resources (people, material, information, budget, and/or time) to accomplish goals. Prioritizes work according to the program or department’s goals, not just own job responsibilities; manages own time effectively.
• Business Acumen:  The ability to use information, ask the right questions and take decisions that make an impact on the overall business performance.

       Managerial Competencies

• Emotional Intelligence: Empathetic, understands attitudes, interests, needs of others; predict others behavior. Self-aware and keeps own emotions from interfering with work. Understanding both the strengths and limitations of others.
• Trust to Delegate: Appropriately allocates decision‐making authority and/or task responsibility to others; maximizes the organization’s and individual’s effectiveness.
• Strategic Thinking: Formulates objectives and priorities, and implements plans consistent with the long-term interests of the organization in a global environment. Capitalizes on opportunities and manages risks.
• Staff Development: Planning and supporting the development of individuals’ skills and abilities so that they can fulfill current or future job responsibilities more effectively.
• Coaching/Feedback: Recognizes and acknowledges strengths in others. Provides timely guidance and feedback to help others develop knowledge and skill areas to accomplish tasks or solve problems.
• Fundraising (PMs only): Able to continuously identify opportunities for TechnoServe to grow revenue; demonstrates good understanding of fundraising and donor management. Able to develop high potential fundraising proposals.
• Strategic Thinking: Takes an overview and identifies patterns, trends and long-term possibilities. Creates and shapes a vision of the future that fits in with TNS’ long term objectives. Is able to articulate strategy to a wider audience. Formulates objectives and priorities, and implements plans consistent with the long-term interests of the organization in a global environment. Capitalizes on opportunities and manages risks.

Technical Competencies

• Financial & Resource Management: The ability to estimate, justify, and manage appropriate funding levels to support goal accomplishment. Managing Resources is about understanding human, financial, and operational resource issues to make decisions aimed at building and planning efficient project workflows, and at improving overall organizational performance.
• Donor/Partnership Management: Identifying opportunities and taking action to build strategic relationships between one’s area and other areas, teams, departments, or organizations to help achieve business goals.
• Analysis, Research, Report Writing: Experience in business planning and analysis, modeling for feasibility and execution. Able to analyze and express oneself clearly in business writing.
• Innovative Mindset: Curious inquiries, asks questions and seeks out information from multiple sources, learns from mistakes, sees change as an opportunity.

How To Apply

Qualified and interested applicants should Click here and submit a cover letter resume as a single document (either Word or PDF) by December 05, 2024. Applications will be reviewed and considered as received/on a rolling basis. Only applicants meeting minimum qualifications will be contacted. Please note that we are not accepting CVs that are not sent through the indicated link.

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.