Location: Dakar, Senegal or Remotely from DC, Switzerland, France, or Belgium
BACKGROUND
About myAgro
myAgro is a non-profit agritech social enterprise based in West Africa. We have developed a mobile savings model that allows farmers to invest their own funds in high-quality seed, fertilizer, and agricultural training to increase their harvest and income by 50 -100%. Our North Star is to support 1 million farmers in 2027- providing them the tools they need to increase their incomes by $1.50 a day. Our organization has received recognition and support from Skoll Foundation, Echoing Green, World Bank, and The Audacious Project from TED. Learn more from our founder and CEO here.
The Position
The Chief People and Culture Officer leads myAgro’s talent and culture work to attract, develop, and retain the workforce necessary for myAgro to grow 30-40% each year and successfully fulfill its mission. They will partner closely with executive leadership and the HR team to implement an HR strategy with a focus on recruitment and retention, employee engagement, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
This is an exciting opportunity for a highly collaborative and action-oriented leader with deep experience in people-centered HR practices. The CPCO should be a seasoned change agent with the ability to build trusting relationships across all levels of the organization and understand the big picture while managing the day-to-day.
The CPCO reports to the Chief Financial Officer and will directly supervise four staff including the Chief Talent Officer, Compensation & Benefits Manager, Talent Manager, and Compliance Manager. Additionally, the CPCO will indirectly supervise a team of 20 HR professionals.
ROLE OVERVIEW
Role Responsibilities
● Lead the HR function, the team that drives strategies, activities, and time applications related to myAgro’s people and culture goals. You invest and develop a strong bench of leaders in key HR roles.
● Lead key initiatives on employee engagement and wellbeing, fostering a culture of engagement, and developing programs that support employee well-being, work-life balance, and mental health.
● Lead efforts to cultivate a positive, mission-driven organizational culture that aligns with MyAgro’s values. This includes managing change initiatives and communicating and reinforcing MyAgro’s culture and values across all levels.
● Make connections and powerful partnerships across the global management team, the group that drives cross-functional operational excellence in domains that deliver value at the global, country, and individual team member altitudes.
● Represent the HR team and build relationships across the Executive Team, the executive body charged with shaping and stewarding myAgro’s direction, effectiveness, and impact.
● Serve as a thought partner and confidante to the CFAO, COO and CEO to provide strategic counsel on all employee issues and people-related initiatives, including the establishment of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Role Priorities
● Support the executive team and HR teams to implement their current strategy, which focuses on moving HR work to the country offices and creating technical expertise at the global level. Assess gaps, prioritize objectives, and manage a successful implementation.
● Implement a plan to leverage data to improve all HR functions and operations and to proactively meet changing internal and external conditions.
● Identify quick wins to improve compliance and reporting to internal stakeholders and develop a project roadmap for building a phased approach to greater controls, compliance and reporting to reduce HR risks.
● Identify quick wins and medium-term opportunities to improve forward planning and support routine HR work. Develop and implement an annual HR planning calendar.
● Develop and implement a comprehensive employee onboarding process to support new hires across the organization.
THE IDEAL CANDIDATE
The ideal candidate for the Chief People and Culture Officer position possesses the following competencies:
Organizational Savvy
Maneuvering comfortably through complex policy, process, and people related organizational dynamics
Instills Trust
Gaining the confidence and trust of others through honesty, integrity, and authenticity
Communicates Effectively
Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences
Builds Effective Teams
Building strong teams with a strong identity that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goal
Strategic Mindset
Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies
Plans & Aligns
Planning and prioritizing HR work to meet commitments aligned with organizational goals
Additional Qualifications
A strong Chief People and Culture Officer candidate will be a:
● Strong operator: Demonstrate a bias toward action that activates- rather than bulldozes- team members to achieve ambitious goals. Able to design and support systematic and dynamic ways of strengthening culture, scaling operations and systems, and promoting DEIB, while overseeing ongoing HR activities.
● Strategist: Develop strategic clarity for myAgro’s people and culture work while the organization grows 30-40% each year. Consistently and rigorously leverage data to assess progress and refine strategy by engaging in analysis and structured problem solving with your team.
● People Leader: Be an exemplar for how to manage and lead a diverse, geographically dispersed team to ambitious, clear outcomes. Ensure team processes and activities, particularly people-related processes and activities, are anchored in our Values and Pillars for Growth, and provide performance and career support to HR team members.
● Partnership Creator: Thoughtfully cultivate external and internal partnerships to advance myAgro’s talent strategy, prioritizing key relationships with benefits providers, legal counsel, recruitment agencies, and myAgro’s CEO and other executives.
● Storyteller: Brings to life complex or technical content by demonstrating a strong internal public presence. Able to simply and compellingly set collective direction through language and leverage the right communication channels for different moments and audiences (i.e., videos, Zoom calls, email, Slack channels, etc.).
● Technical Expert: Bring senior-level technical HR expertise and experience in an international development environment inclusive of West African countries (e.g., employee relations, total rewards, talent recruitment, performance management, HR compliance, security, etc.) to ensure myAgro has the right resources and acumen for this next phase as an org.
● Logistical Fit: Preference for candidates who speak French and live in Dakar, Senegal or work remotely from Washington, DC, Switzerland, France, or Belgium. Will travel every 4-6 weeks to our countries of operations for meetings and developing a pulse on culture and managers’ needs.
WHO WE ARE
Work Environment
Preference will be given to candidates who are located in Dakar, Senegal. Remote candidates will be considered and must be willing to either move to Dakar or travel to Dakar for a minimum of 2 weeks every two months.
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
Salary: $190,000-$210,000 USD*
*The salary will be set in the currency where you are based (CFA in Senegal, Euro in Europe, and USD in the United States).
Benefits:
● Health Insurance – 100% coverage for the team member and family (including dental and vision coverage)
● 24 vacation days annually
● Retirement plan contribution match of up to 5%
● Professional development and laptop stipends
● If relocating myAgro provides:
○ The flight to Senegal
○ 2 months of transitional housing
○ $10,000 of relocation assistance (reimbursement of costs, or paid on production of appropriate invoice)
● The opportunity to make a difference for farmers everyday!
TIMELINE AND NEXT STEPS
If you are interested in this position, please click here. All applicants will receive an email confirming receipt of their application.
We encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply even if you do not meet all of the qualifications outlined above. If you are selected to move forward for an initial screening call, we expect you to hear from us by February.
Sarah Raful Whinston
Principal
Sterling Nelson
Talent Consultant