Job Title: Program Manager
Reports to: Country Director
Travel: Nairobi and Kisumu Region
Job Grade: 9
Background And Summary
At TechnoServe, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to build a better life. For over 50 years, we have given smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs the skills, connections, and confidence to lift themselves out of poverty. We leverage the power of markets and the private sector to create sustainable economic growth to benefit people and the planet. Our unique mix of business solutions, deep knowledge of local contexts, and data-driven insights is helping to fight poverty across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
TechnoServe staff are local–95% are from the countries in which they work. We put a high premium on collaboration and entrepreneurship. We hold ourselves and each other to the highest standards of integrity and transparency. And we focus on delivering lasting impact for our mission.
Program Overview:
Since 2023, TechnoServe has supported women micro-retailers with disabilities within Coca-Cola Beverages Africa’s (CCBA) retail distribution chain as a consortium partner under the Global Labor Program – Inclusive Futures program. TechnoServe has received funding to continue implementation of components of this activity. The program will provide business management skills training, and coaching, and facilitate strategic linkages with CCBA for women with disabilities in Kisumu, Nairobi and neighboring counties. The program will demonstrate that relational capacity-building interventions along value chains such as CCBA lead to improved levels of employment among people with disabilities, particularly women and men while enhancing the protection of their labor rights. The program will build micro-retailers’ capacity and integrating them into CCBA’s distribution network, fostering economic empowerment and social inclusion.
Through the formation and establishment of business groups, the program will foster greater connectivity among these entrepreneurs, enhancing their ability to share knowledge, access markets, and advocate for their needs. Additionally, the initiative will expand its reach to new cohorts of women with disabilities across diverse sectors, including the food industry and agribusiness – broadening economic opportunities and deepening impact through strategic partnerships. The program will continue support to 440 women currently linked to the CCBA value chain and begin engagement 659 women currently recruited. Similarly, the program’s sector agnostic approach aims to work with an additional 600 women with disabilities across multiple sectors to ensure a sector-agnostic approach that optimizes economic inclusion by empowering nano-retailers to build successful businesses and improve their livelihoods.
Job Summary:
The Program Manager will be responsible for overall management and implementation of the program in Nairobi and Kisumu counties, ensuring program quality and impact. S/he will be in charge of ensuring that the program optimizes impact in line with donor priorities, seeks to develop alliances and build relationships with the donor, partners and other stakeholders in the micro-retail space and organizations working with persons living with disability. S/he will be the main representative of the program to both internal and external stakeholders and industry players. S/he will lead on ensuring that the program generates learning on how the program model can most effectively empower women with disability in Kenya.
Key Roles And Responsibilities
- Program Management, Quality and Impact
- Lead all program activities and ensure excellence in execution.
- Ensure high quality program beneficiaries are recruited in collaboration with the program partners.
- Maintain project work plan and ensure timely project implementation
- Ensure project activities are implemented with sound managerial, technical, human resource and overall programmatic practices
- Ensure delivery of technical training packages is of high quality, appropriate to local context and effectively reaching participants
- Takes ownership and accountability for improved quality, impact and effectiveness
- Ensures compliance with TechnoServe and donor regulations
- Hold regular team meetings to track implementation progress and share relevant project and administrative data
- Provide coaching, direction, and leadership support to program team members to achieve results
- Overall responsible for high quality delivery of the program in Nairobi, Kisumu and surrounding counties as applicable.
- External and Internal Communication
- Ensures clear and effective communication of the program to all relevant parties
- Builds reputation of the program through sharing of evidence-based impact and participation in key stakeholder events
- Maintains good working relationship with all relevant TechnoServe departments and other programs
- Stakeholder Management and Representation
- Cultivates and maintains relationships with key stakeholders including donor, government, industry bodies and other development actors
- Establish and maintain strong relationships with relevant stakeholders in the Kenyan MSMEs sector, organizations working with Persons with disability including relevant government departments, private sector companies, and business associations
- Represent the program and TechnoServe at internal and external functions
- Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
- Timely production and sharing of project performance metrics, including quarterly Program Status Reports(PSRs) and Corporate Measurement data
- Produce narrative reports for internal and external consumption
- Ensure project targets are achieved
- Share best practices and lessons learned from the project
- Work towards identifying learning agendas for the program.
- Budget Management
- Manage and monitor project budget variances to ensure spending rates are on target and realign as required.
- Ensure all payments/activities are in compliance with donor requests, restrictions and regulations as outlined in donor contracts / Rules and Regulations
Required Skills & Experience
- Degree qualifications in business-related studies required; Master’s degree in related field is an added advantage qualification
- Minimum of 7 years’ field and technical experience in business development and/or economic or financial analysis related Enterprise Development.
- Strong project management, financial analysis skills and data analytics skills
- Understand and is well conversant with recent trends in Enterprise development in the country.
- Experience working with communities living on less than $2 a day
- Experience working with Persons with disability is desirable
- Experience working with MSMEs in Kenya.
- Demonstrated capability of using technology and social media to reach a wide range of beneficiaries.
- Capable of working with financial institutions, private sector organizations and other partners to deliver growth for the program
- Demonstrated ability to generate creative and innovative solutions in work situations
- Excellent interpersonal skills and proven ability and experience managing a diverse team
- Strong oral and written communication skills
- Ability to develop well-written and cohesive analytical reports
- Track record of building strong client and stakeholder relationships
- Ability to identify and understand issues, opportunities and compare data from different sources to draw conclusions and to use effective approaches for developing appropriate solutions and take action that is consistent with available facts
- Willingness to travel frequently in informal settlements in both Nairobi and Kisumu.
- Fluency in English and Kiswahili
- Understand, respect and promote TechnoServe’s values, vision and strategy in implementation of assigned duties
Success Factors
Competency is a combination of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) directly related to successful
performance on the job.
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 cooperatively 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 and appreciation 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 judgment 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:
- Financial & Resource Management: The ability to estimate, justify, and manage appropriate funding levels to support goal accomplishment. Managing Resources is about understanding human, financial, and operational resource issues to make decisions aimed at building and planning efficient project workflows, and at improving overall organizational performance.
- Computer Literacy: Demonstrates knowledge and ability to use specific computer programs or applications for own functional area. Has the ability to improve performance by integrating new and existing technology into the workplace.
- Internal Client Focus: Client Focus is based on the ability to understand the client’s needs and concerns
in the short to long-term and to provide sound recommendations and/or solutions.
- Compliance & Governance: Compliance with and knowledge of company policies, applicable legislation,
grant requirements, donor contracts, the local labor code and tax laws.
Managerial Competencies:
- Emotional Intelligence: The act of knowing, understanding, and responding to emotions, overcoming stress in the moment, and being aware of how your words and actions affect others. Emotional intelligence consists of 4 attributes: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
- Strategic Thinking: Managers should recognize key actions, underlying problems, make connection and patterns, see consequences and implications. Anticipates obstacles realistically and plans ways to deal with them.
- Staff Development: Managers are required to work with employees to plan on the development of skills and abilities so that they can fulfil current or future job/role responsibilities more effectively.
- Trust to Delegate: Managers should have trust and willingness to assign responsibilities to direct reports and give them discretion and authority to carry them out.
- Feedback/Coaching (mentoring): Managers should give instructions, suggestions, explanations, and feedback to subordinates.
Applications will close on 25th March 2025
