Job Opportunity for State Program Manager at IMAGO in Bhopal

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 State Program Manager to provide programmatic support in the effective management of the design and implementation of the scaling of an agro-processing value chain model across multiple districts and blocks of MP through the community institutions of NRLM. This project is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is for a duration of 3 years. The agro-processing model is adapted from SEWA’s RUDI model, which is currently being piloted by SEWA and IMAGO in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

The State Program Manager will be responsible for the successful implementation of the project across the different sites in Madhya Pradeshduring the 3 years of the project, as part of IMAGO’s team. Working side by side with the State Rural Livelihoods Mission teams, and the SEWA’s team to ensure the successful implementation of the project. The State Program Manager will be responsible for
strategic planning, liaising with the State, district and block teams of SRLM, operationalizing the agro-processing unit, capacity building of the SHG women and ensuring market linkages. The State Program Manager will oversee a team of 3 members who will be involved in the implementation of the program. As part of the IMAGO team, the State Program Manager is also expected to provide field and documentation support to other projects, support in business development and other administrative activities associated with the work in India.

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The State Program Manager will directly report to IMAGO’s India Country Director and the role will include the following tasks:

General Program Execution

● Support the India Country Head on the planning and execution of IMAGO products & services with client organizations.

● Preparation of grant progress reports and new grant proposals, including both narrative and impact.

● 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.

● Provide support for maintenance of the IMAGO website

● Help with IMAGO events.

● Other administrative duties as assigned

Specific to the Project

a. Planning, timely execution and monitoring of the implementation of the agro-processing units and value chain in the scaling up 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. Maintain information regarding produce of the SHG members, markets (prices and trends), and commodity-wise details.

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

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

g. Develop manuals and guidelines to facilitate implementation. Also, facilitate workshops, consultations necessary for developing the same.

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

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

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

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

QUALIFICATIONS

This is a position at IMAGO based in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. With a 40% of travel requirement, mostly within Madhya Pradesh to the different project locations. This role is ideal for you if:

● Should be a Postgraduate in Agri-business management / Rural Management / Rural Marketing or MBA in Marketing from a reputed university/institute.

● Minimum 5 years’ experience on project management and program delivery, and overall work experience of 8-10 years.

● Demonstrated experience of project management that delivered high quality programs as well as managing internal learning processes across virtual teams.

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

● Candidate with 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 (3-5 team members) and building their initiative to function as members of efficient and effective teams

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

● You are 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 State Program Manager, 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