Vacancy Announcement
ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY
Position: Senior Director, Regional Office (Re-advert)
Term of Employment: Fixed Term
Duty Station(s): Hawassa
Required Number: One
Salary & Benefits: Competitive
Application Deadline: September 26, 2020
BACKGROUND:
The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) is a strategy and delivery-oriented government agency created to help accelerate the growth and transformation of the country’s agriculture sector. The ATA envisions to contribute to a transformed agriculture by 2030 where transformed agriculture is a market-oriented agriculture sector that uses natural resources sustainably, and generates improved production and productivity, and higher incomes for farmers and pastoralists through catalyzing sustainable development of agricultural value chains and markets, through promoting effective practices and approaches to address systemic constraints, and coordinating execution and integration of high-impact interventions on the ground.
The agency focuses on two primary national approaches to catalyze agricultural transformation. First, we support the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), its affiliate institutions, and other partners to identify and address systemic bottlenecks with appropriate interventions. Second, we support the sector to accelerate development of high-priority commodity value chains in clearly defined geographic clusters, through the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) program.
Our major activities include conducting strategic and analytical studies, providing technical implementation support, coordinating platforms to better integrate partners and projects, and designing and directly leading a number of implementation projects. The ATA’s headquarter located in Addis Ababa, has four regional offices allowing it to work closely with a wide range of public, private and development sector partners across the country.
Our Culture
We have an exceptional team of highly competent employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results. Our culture is one where talented, dedicated and adaptable individuals are committed to doing their best and exhibit great team work to achieve excellent results.
At ATA, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution in changing the country’s agricultural sector. We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, committed, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training. We recognize our most valuable assets are our staff and are committed to providing our employees with the tools, training and mentorships necessary to achieve their career goals.
POSITION SUMMARY:
The Senior Director will lead the ATA Regional Team and directly report to ATA CEO. S/he will have a primary responsibility of closely engaging with ATA senior management to develop and implement a portfolio of integrated initiatives towards increasing efficiency in crop production, marketing value to agriculture and livestock produce while striving for operation excellence in finance, procurement, logistics and human resources management. The Senior Director shall primarily collaborate and closely work with the Regional Bureaus of Agriculture and Natural Resources (RBoANR) and shall engage with all strategic regional stakeholders including the regional hierarchies of the zonal, woreda and kebele offices. The Senior Director will seek to strengthen the collaboration and capabilities of federal and regional institutions. The ideal Senior Director will be passionate about his work on improving the life of rural people, particularly smallholder households. S/he must possess deep familiarity of Ethiopia’s socio-economic and political environment and Ethiopian agricultural systems. Also, s/he must possess deep familiarity and extensive knowledge of agricultural extension system and institutions operating in the sector. The Senior Directors will lead and oversee all programmatic and administrative (Finance, audit, procurement, logistics and HR) functions while integrating the regional office work with that of the ATA headquarter.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES:
The main responsibilities of the Senior director include but is not limited to the following:
Leadership
Project Management
Operations
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
o planning and implementation of agricultural growth.
o market-led value chain development and upgrading activities (preferably including project management of large-scale agricultural development, agro-processing and/or agribusiness focused initiatives).
o Obtaining operation excellence in organization capacity building.
o Lead diverse staff and ensure staff development plan.
o Manage budget and activities and ensure audit requirement is met.
o Ensuring value for money is achieved and driving impact in the agriculture sector.