Business Development Manager Job Placement – WeFarm
Job Title: Business Development Manager
Organisation: WeFarm
Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda
Reports to: Head of Business & Partnerships, London
About US:
WeFarm is a unique social enterprise providing a vital service for the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers who live and work without internet access. This pioneering, peer-to- peer platform enables farmers to access crowd-sourced information by SMS, creating social impact on a ground-breaking scale and generating game-changing data in the process.
In just two years, WeFarm has acquired more than 185,000 farmers across Kenya, Uganda and Peru, has facilitated over 20 million interactions and featured in the FT, Forbes and Wired.co.uk, as well as winning awards from Google, The Venture and the European Commission’s Ideas From Europe.
Would you like to change the world and create social impact on a global scale? Are you passionate, ambitious, and driven? Then apply to join Uganda’s most exciting tech start- up today.
Job Summary: The Business Development Manager will be tasked with bringing new partners to the business. The Business Development Manager – Uganda will try to aid Wefarm in achieving its ambitious goal to reach one-million farmers by the end of December 2017. This is a relationship-driven role and you’ll need to excel at networking, meeting potential partners and managing existing partnerships and relationships. Your role will involve generating and managing new leads, pitching to clients and presenting at events and conferences. While primarily based in Kampala, the role will require travel and occasional unsociable working hours. We are looking for someone who would enjoy the challenges and different environments of working for a start-up, someone comfortable meeting with small, local businesses one day, a top government official the day after, and the CTO of a famous tech start-up the day after.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
- The incumbent will pro-actively identifying and developing partnership opportunities throughout Uganda and building a key role for WeFarm in the Uganda agricultural ecosystem.
- Planning persuasive approaches and pitches to convince local and multinational businesses, NGOs and other relevant organizations to partner with WeFarm.
- Attending conferences, events and trade shows to maximise opportunities, seek new leads and develop a strong network of contacts.
- Reviewing leads, tracking success of proposals and reporting on progress.
- Maintaining a network of partners and prospects.
- Supporting growth and retention of existing partnerships.
- Tasked with liaising and collaborating with farmer on-boarding and marketing team to ensure
- successful delivery of contracts.
- Tasked with collecting and sharing market intelligence.
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- The ideal candidate should three to five years’ experience in a similar role
- Good track record of successful selling to major accounts and business development experience.
- Strong commercial acumen and strategic approach.
- Passion for the social mission of WeFarm.
- Experience working across international markets – preferred.
- Knowledge of supply chain and food industry – ideal.
- Knowledge of the smallholder farmer ecosystem – ideal.
- Excellent communication skills
- Ability to lead and motivate others
- Possess organisational skills
- Highly competitive
- Self-driven and ability to generate own leads.
Job Terms and Benefits:
- Salary commensurate with experience in the start-up environment
- Chance to work in amazing social enterprise start-up environment and help change the world!
- Chance to work with international teams and across countries – opportunity for travel.
How to Apply:
All suitably qualified and interested candidates should apply by sending and updated CV and a (short) cover letter that answers the following question:
We are looking to reach one million farmers in the next 8 months. Please list 3 businesses (1 local, 1 national and 1 global) that you think would be a great fit to help us reach this goal and draft an introductory email to convince them we are awesome!
Please send your applications to jobUGBD1@wefarm.org