About US:
Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation (Swisscontact) is the business-oriented independent foundation for international development cooperation and it is represented in 32 countries with over 900 employees. Swisscontact was founded in 1959 and it promotes economic, social and environmental development.
About DfID NU-TEC Project:
Swisscontact Uganda is involved in the NU-TEC programme (a five year DFID funded programme) that aims to increase the incomes and climate resilience of poor men and women in northern Uganda (NU) by (a) stimulating sustainable, pro-poor growth in selected agricultural markets and (b) improving the position of poor men and women within these market systems, to make them more inclusive for poor people. Swisscontact Uganda implements a programme in Northern Uganda. Palladium International manages the programme on behalf of DFID.
Job Summary: The Marketing Manager will take overall responsibility of providing strategic guidance and management for the programme market groups by managing all the programme interventions within the market section and overseeing both the strategic and administrative elements of the interventions. The incumbent will be tasked with establishing and managing relationships with potential partners and stakeholders in the various interventions within the market sector. The Market Sector Manager will identify and design potential interventions for the programme and develop strategies for implementing these interventions. S/he will be responsible for ensuring strong linkages between the market sector and the Results Measurement team of the programme.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Provide overall strategic direction for the market sector and all interventions within the sector; monitoring and quality assuring all intervention guides and resulting outputs.
The incumbent will identify new markets or market actors with the aim of contributing to the overall programme strategy; liaise with the programme Senior Management Team on potential markets and design effective implementation strategies for approved market interventions ensuring that they meet all donor and programme requirements.
Identify and build strategic partnerships within the market and play a lead role in managing all established partnerships. This will include approaching firms or other market actors and brokering deals.
Lead on determining the commercial viability of new product areas within new market actors; identify the strategic partnerships between NU-TEC MD and these potential market actors.
Coordinate the development of final market opportunity reports as well as all other weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports within the market sector.
Drive the stakeholder analysis of the selected market systems as well as identifying and contacting potential agents of change.
Manage the implementation of all market intervention ensuring that initiative is taken within each intervention and setting work plans for the interventions.
Ensure sustained reporting on all intervention activities, progress reports, on and off field feedback and lessons learnt from each intervention.
Identify key policy areas for each intervention and establish appropriate partnerships and contacts aimed at driving the policy amendment process where applicable.
Coordinate all administrative aspects of market partnerships including but not limited to grants, MoUs and contracts.
Manage the outputs of all members of the market section team ensuring optimum performance of all members of the team
Establish and maintain processes and systems which ensure strong continued linkages between the programme’s Results Measurement team and the Market Section team ensuring all interventions are adequately and extensively researched, reported and monitored.
Oversee spending on interventions within the market ensuring the meet agreed standards and also exhibit the DFID value for money policy
Qualifications, Skills and Experience:
The ideal candidate for this Market Manager vacancy must hold a Master’s degree or similar qualification in Business, Economics or Development Studies;
At least three years’ experience in implementing and managing projects or running a business;
Previous supervisory/ managerial responsibilities within a busy team;
Experience in business strategic development with a focus in the agricultural sector;
Experience reviewing and writing reports;
Previous experience in the development of surveys and data collection instruments and data analysis experience using Microsoft Excel or other data analysis tools;
Previous experience using the market for the poor (M4P) approach would be of great advantage;
Working knowledge of the institutions and organisations and/ or businesses that provide services to the agricultural sector in Uganda and especially Northern Uganda;
We especially welcome individuals from a private sector background, or those who have experience in agricultural extension or experience in providing business services for companies.
Personal Competencies:
Communication: Confidently delivers tailored messages to various audiences using various media and tools. Asks insightful questions, validates the speaker’s feelings and points, and encourages the speaker; leaves the speaker feeling ‘heard’. Reports concisely and proactively with observations, analysis, and implications of the observations on project work and has the ability to present such findings to a variety of stakeholders in a concise and effective manner.
Relationship Builder: Quickly develops trusting relationships with others; proactively assesses and manages trust with others. Maintains industry, government and corporate networks and consistently forges new business relationships to fit strategic priorities. Identifies shared goals and develops effective strategies around those goals; follows-up on connections to catalyze positive relationships. Demonstrates neutrality and helps parties come to creative agreements and solutions, while keeping ownership with the parties.
Business Person: Understands the idea of the marketing mix (the 5 ‘P’s); can gather market info and give advice on marketing strategy; Advises on building and keeping good customer relations. Keeps records in more complex business environments; Advises on basic finances; Identifies and considers the financial risks of decisions; considers the economic value for the markets before making financial decisions. Delivers training workshops; Advises on selecting and recruiting staff; appreciates the importance of incentives for performance
Coach: Regularly engages with market actors and stakeholders to uncover and identify specific needs; builds desire in the coachee to address the needs. Offers specific, constructive feedback to others; leaves the coachee feeling empowered to improve; actively seeks out feedback to improve; uses feedback in reviewing intervention strategies. Creates buy-in from the coachee to improve; helps develop action plans; provides support, while ensure coachee ownership over the process
Innovator: Tests out new ideas on an ongoing basis; failure encourages greater future effort; often demonstrates creative thinking; uses innovative approaches in the execution of work; actively searches for solutions beyond traditional boundaries. Makes time to reflect and codify learning; seeks out sources of learning; regularly adjusts actions based on comparing expected results against actual results; makes informed decisions based on lessons learnt from other interventions within the sector. Proactively shares both successful and unsuccessful endeavours; actively identifies issues that may hinder effective collaborations and devises means of minimizing these; takes a leadership role in a team
Political Economist: Critically analyses institutions using a visual model, objectively allocating roles and functions. Can prescribe an agenda to improve the institutional arrangements for the benefit of poor people. Rigorously analyses the way power and politics affects markets and poverty; can model the power relations; and can prescribe improvements for the benefit of poor people. Collects and arranges complex evidence within an Excel workbook; cost-benefit analysis of economic options; prescription and argument for pro-poor improvements in markets.
How to Apply:
All suitably qualified and interested candidates are encouraged to send their applications mentioning the District they are interested in and updated CVs via e-mail addressed to:
Country Director Swisscontact Uganda,
Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation,
P.O. Box 21153, Kampala. Uganda Plot 19/20 Off Martyr’s Way Ntinda,
Kampala. Uganda
E-mail to: tania.haidara@swisscontact.org
Deadline: 30th December, 2016