Vice President of Strategy

Company Overview

Digital Green is a global development organization that empowers smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the collective power of technology and grassroots-level partnerships. We join forces with governments, private agencies and, most importantly, rural communities themselves to co-create digital solutions that are of the community and for the community. When farmers have the tools they need to connect with one another, they’re far more likely to apply what they’ve learned on their farms and in their households–improving their own livelihoods and those of others in their community, in a manner that’s nutrition-sensitive, climate-resilient, and inclusive.

So far, Digital Green has reached 1.5 million rural community members across over 8,000 villages in India, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Ghana, Niger and Tanzania. Collaborating with over 20 partners, Digital Green has helped facilitate the production and dissemination of over 4,000 localized videos in 28 languages. Digital Green operates from offices in San Francisco, New Delhi, Addis Ababa and Washington, DC. Digital Green is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in the US. For more information, please visit Digital Green’s website: http://www.digitalgreen.org.

Digital Green is entering an exciting phase of development as it expands its activities to additional countries in Asia and Africa. We are seeking a strong technology leader to help us grow our product offerings in service of the smallholder farmer.

Job Summary

The VP, Strategy role will play a key role as a member of Digital Green’s leadership team in influencing the overall vision, direction, and strategy of the organization. This individual will be asked to oversee multi country programs that could serve as a stepping stone for the organization’s development and ensure the coordination of activities across Digital Green’s program portfolio with the end goal of impacting the lives of small-scale farming communities.

Key Responsibilities

Develop and coordinate both long- and short-term strategic plans across Digital Green’s programs

• Guide organization-wide strategic planning, work plan development, monitoring, and decision-making by developing an integrated vision and systems-level approach that maximizes farmer impact at scale
• Develop annual operating plans and review frameworks for Digital Green’s 5-year strategic objectives in coordination with Operations/Finance team
• Partner with regional strategy leads to align individual projects at the country level with strategic objectives
• Provide strategic thought leadership by directly and indirectly influencing and regional strategic direction through regular reviews with key stakeholders such as the global and country leadership groups

Lead business development and donor relations for new investment opportunities with the goal of maximizing farmer impact

• Lead global business development efforts to identify or create new agriculture growth opportunities in partnership with the regional business development teams
• Serve as the primary interface for U.S. based donors and partners and ensure strong relationship management
• Diversify and expand donor-based funding by cultivating innovations and donor relations
• Oversee concept development for new agricultural products, partnerships, and initiatives, including corresponding business models

Lead global external communications to raise DG’s profile and advance our principles and values

• Develop and guide the external communication and advocacy strategy to catalyze business development opportunities, raise Digital Green’s profile, and advocate DG’s principles and values
• Manage donor reporting with the goal of providing timely and high-quality reports
• Coordinate external communications activities across the regions and globally in partnership with regionally-based communications teams to effectively communicate our work to influence both internal and external stakeholders

Provide forward looking thought leadership on the role of technology and grass roots level programs with a focus on innovation and R&D

• Support the internal knowledge development and piloting of processes to select and assess new innovations that maximize farmer impact
• Provide thought leadership around the role of technology and grass roots level programs to maximize farmer impact by contributing to DG’s new initiative FarmStack as well as other new programs
• Collaborate closely with the Product and Engineering functions to operationalize new initiatives, like FarmStack, into viable opportunities by articulating theories of change, business models and learning agendas while ensuring strategic alignment with Product and Engineering activities
• Build a community of partners and donors to define and advocate for the adoption of FarmStack / data standards

Oversee multi-country programs and new initiatives with a focus on growth for Digital Green

• Oversee the rollout of Digital Green’s multi-regional projects and initiatives such as the Developing Local Extension Capacity Project
• Guide the development and coordination of multi-regional projects including managing project activities, budgets, teams, and partners
• Use multi-regional projects to seed growth opportunities in Asia and Africa

Develop the monitoring and evaluation function and the learning agenda in order to maximize small-holder farmer impact

• Analyze and synthesize lessons and results that can inform opportunities for growth and innovation in Digital Green’s agricultural programs by employing sound monitoring, evaluation, and learning methodologies in measuring farmer impact
• Develop frameworks to support establishing objectives that align program activities with strategy and develop mechanisms to track progress against these at an organizational level
• Engage internal and external subject matter experts and the MERL team to improve program design, leverage technology and social platforms, and identify new opportunities for growth
• Oversee research projects to ensure results are rigorous and evidence-based and inform overall strategy

Lead the Strategy team and work in partnership with regional strategy teams

• Build a strong, values-driven strategy function with the goal of creating an innovation-focused, collaborative team environment
• Mentor and serve as a resource to global and regional strategy teams to ensure alignment with overall strategic goals
• Provide staff training and career development opportunities anticipating future skill-set needs
• Institute strong performance management practices to ensure clear goals and accountabilities with a focus on results