Job Opportunity for Manager at IMAGO in Lucknow

ABOUT US

Imago Global Grassroots helps grassroots organizations and social enterprises scale up their development impact through strategic/capability building support. IMAGO looks to tackle the complex challenges around poverty through a design- driven, iterative, bottom-up approach that puts the poor at the heart of solution design and implementation. Using a participatory approach, we work with these organizations to define and then implement their scaling up strategy over the medium term. The process involves understanding the unmet needs through human centered design, testing their theory of change, and refining their unique value proposition. Together, we assess the organization’s current situation, the system in which it operates, the stakeholders it interacts with and its overall authorizing environment.

We also work on their processes and data systems for prototyping innovations, tracking change,
and assessing impact, using a variety of evaluation techniques, with a particular focus on adaptive evaluation. This provides the organization with the necessary scaling up scaffolding to expand the reach of their solutions while remaining true to their values.
IMAGO currently has projects in India, Africa, Latin America and the United States. To learn more about what we do, see our website, youtube channel and an introduction from co-founder Isabel Guerrero.

SUMMARY

Imago Global Grassroots is looking for a Manager to support the design and implementation of the scaling of an agro-processing enterprise model in UP through the community institutions of NRLM. This is a 3-year project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation adapted from SEWA’s RUDI enterprise, which is currently being piloted by SEWA and IMAGO in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The Manager will be responsible for the successful implementation of the project across
the different 8-10 districts in Uttar Pradesh working closely with IMAGO’s core team, the State Rural Livelihoods Mission and SEWA’s team. The Manager will be responsible for strategic planning, liaising with the district and block teams of SRLM, operationalizing the agro-processing unit, capacity building of the SHG women with SEWA and ensuring market linkages. The Manager will work closely with IMAGO’s core India team on project implementation and business development.

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The Manager will directly report to the India Program lead and the role will include the following tasks:

General Program Execution

● Ensure smooth and organized flow of information and support the execution and ongoing design of the India evaluation projects.

● Engagement of internal and external experts, and construction of high-quality communication materials including policy briefs, technical reports, and presentation materials.

● Support on IMAGO’s knowledge production with the expectation of authoring and co-authoring products.

● Other administrative duties as assigned

Specific to the Project

a. Timely execution and monitoring of the implementation of the agro-processing units and value chain for the 8 – 10 districts included in the project.

b. Mapping of value chains, analyzing value chain competitiveness, project strategy, business plans.

c. Regular liaising and reporting to the State Rural Livelihoods Mission team.

d. Maintaining information regarding produce of the SHG members, markets (prices and trends), and commodity details.

e. Identifying institutional buyers / local buyers, market linkages and strengthening local market linkage through capacity building and monitoring of the SHG members involved in sales.

f. Close handholding, support and guidance for capacity building of processing center staff.

g. Identify and document best practices in value chain development.

h. Co-ordination with the Technical Support Agencies for capacity building, best practices in agro-processing.

i. Developing and executing capacity building plans for the project staff and community members on value chain development.

j. Ensure smooth implementation with close attention to measurement and documentation of learnings at each iteration.

QUALIFICATIONS

This is a position based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. With a 40% of travel requirement, mostly within Uttar Pradesh to the different project locations.

This role is ideal for somebody with:

● A Post Graduate degree in Agri-business management / Rural Management / Rural Marketing or MBA in Marketing from a reputed university/institute.

● Demonstrated experience of at least 2 years in project management and  delivery of high-quality programs, with overall work experience of 5-7 years.

● Experience in managing agriculture commodity supply chain in companies engaged in agri-business, P&L handling experience would be preferred.

● Experience in enterprise promotion, business advisory services, forward and backward linkages for large agriculture-based businesses would be given priority.

● Proven experience of leading professional staff and building their initiative and ability to thrive as members of efficient and effective teams

● Developed and managed partnerships in market side, supply side, better technologies

● Fluent in Hindi.

APPLICATION PROCESS

1. Interested candidates should send their CV with 3 professional references, expected salary and cover Letter to grao@imagogg.org Gayatri Rao, India Program Lead. The subject line of the email should be Manager UP, Your Name.

2. Candidates shortlisted based on their CVs will receive a test that they will be asked to complete in the timeframe of 24 hours.

3. Candidates shortlisted based on their test will then undergo at least 3 interviews.

IMAGO is looking to fill this position by December 2022. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.