Lead Business Advisor, STRYDE Program Jobs – TechnoServe (TNS)
Job Title: Lead Business Advisor, STRYDE
Organization: TechnoServe (TNS)
Duty Station: Arua, Uganda
Reports to: Team Leader
About US:
TechnoServe (TNS) is an international non-profit development organization founded in 1968. Its mission is to help entrepreneurial men and women break the cycle of poverty by building businesses that create jobs, income, and economic opportunities for their families, their communities, and their countries.
About STRYDE Program:
TechnoServe is implementing the second phase (August 2014 – July 2019) of Strengthening Rural Youth Development through Enterprise Program (STRYDE), a regional youth enterprise development program designed to enable 48,000 rural youth aged 18 to 30 in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania, have a more successful transition into economically independent adulthood, increasing their opportunity, ability and motivation to engage in income-generating activities. The overall goal of the program is to sustainably improve the livelihoods of rural youth and their households, ultimately helping them to become active contributors and financially independent members of society. A key strategy of the program is to deliver indirect training to the youth through partner Vocational Training Institutions.
Job Summary: The Lead Business Advisor, STRYDE will be responsible for timely and effective implementation of project activities and achievement of a portion of the project’s goal to train 13,000 rural youth to increase their productive economic engagement in Uganda i.e. Arua and Amuru districts. The Business Advisor will also be responsible for project planning and oversight, quality implementation, supervision of youth trainers, and monitoring and evaluation of project effectiveness.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Project Management:
- Responsible for a portion of deliverables under STRYDE in Uganda, including specific outputs and outcomes as determined by country management;
- Maintain project work plan and activity budget;
- Ensure timeliness and quality of activity implementation;
- Actively participate in regular team meetings to track implementation progress and share relevant program and administrative data;
- Support the production of narrative reports;
- Ensure the delivery of technical training packages is of high quality, is appropriate to the local context, and is effectively reaching participants;
- Train youth trainers and facilitate training sessions, as needed;
- Collect relevant data for monitoring and evaluation purposes;
- Facilitate the mentoring of rural youth entrepreneurs to execute their business plans i.e. starting up and expanding their businesses.
Country Coordination and Personnel Management:
- Supervise a team of youth trainers;
- Provide support to youth trainers;
- Establish and maintain strong working relationships with country management team;
- Establish and maintain strong working relationships with trainers, sub-contractors, government officials, other local stakeholders, and participants;
- Interface with other country, regional, and HQ staff, as appropriate;
- Ensure information is shared to the country project team;
- Share best practices and lessons learned with team members;
- Work with program staff to identify technical assistance needs at country levels;
- Understand, respect and promote TechnoServe’s values, vision, and strategy in the implementation of assigned duties.
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
- The applicant should preferably hold a Bachelor’s degree in a business related study area from recognized college or university. Post graduate Diploma or part qualification of a professional course is an added advantage.
- At least three years’ experience in a field directly related to agribusiness development, youth development, or entrepreneurship in Uganda is required.
- Previous experience working with International Non-governmental organization (INGO) or development agencies is an added advantage.
- Experience working remotely.
Personal Competencies:
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 andappreciation 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.
- Job Specific/Technical Competencies include:
- Partnership/Donor Management: program staff should understand and apply techniques to develop, maintain and manage business relationships with clients, donors and internal or external partners in order to implement and manage projects and/or identify new business.
- Financial & Resource Management: an important competency program staff must possess to enable them budget properly based on facts and change course when necessary, knowledge of finance to develop and manage budgets.
- Innovative Mindset: program staff should know how to ask questions and seeks out information from multiple sources, learn from mistakes, and see change as an opportunity.
- 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.
How to Apply:
All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send a cover letter and resume (CV) via Email only to the Human Resources Manager: ug-jobs@tns.org. Please clearly indicate the position you are applying for in the subject line of your email and on the application letter.
Deadline: 5th March 2018
: List of Current Job Vacancies / Opportunities in Uganda