Who We Are
Komaza is revolutionizing African forestry by unlocking the potential for small farmers to serve booming wood markets. With roots in San Francisco and headquarters in coastal Kenya, we have planted over 2 million trees with more than 6,000 farmers, making us Kenya’s largest commercial tree planter. By leveraging farmers’ contribution of land and labor, Komaza can access effectively limitless land and establish a hectare of trees for far less than big plantations – a powerful disruption to the traditional forestry model. We have been recognized with numerous awards and investments, including Forbes, Ashoka, Mulago Foundation, and Novastar Ventures. Having recently assembled a top group of investors for a significant growth financing round, we are now seeking driven, high-performance leaders to launch this exciting chapter of accelerated growth.
About Operations Innovation
Komaza is building a new Operations Innovation department as an internal R&D Lab to develop the strategies, products and processes to achieve hugely ambitious long-term growth. All other Department leads are busy with day-to-week-to-month operations, making incremental improvements and fire-fighting inevitable challenges on the ground. Ops Innovation, in contrast, will be tasked with steering clear of the “urgent,” in order to envision and build the long-term “important.” Working closely with other departments and senior executives to define key priorities and strategies, Ops Innovation will design, develop and lead change-management for next-generation processes. While this will involve some moon-shot R&D, the main priority is developing transformative systems for Komaza’s core business. This will require sustained innovation and program development around a focused number of top strategic priorities to deliver true step changes in performance and scale. We will staff the department with proven operators, consultants and visionary thinkers to own specific programs over 1-3 years, managing small teams of fast, flexible thinkers from Kenya and around the world.
About this Role
As Vice President of Operations Innovation, you are fundamentally tasked with designing the future of forestry in Africa, and will be responsible for driving change both at a strategic level and deeply operational level. As the founder of this initiative, you will need to thrive on ambiguity, and possess the ability to see, prioritize and manage simultaneous multi-year initiatives. Most importantly, you must be a lifelong learner who is able to lead, coordinate and coach your team of bright consultants through the stages of designing, developing and delivering critical projects necessary for the long-term success and sustainability of the company. You are an open-minded, flexible, and generative thinker and operator that cares most about driving lasting impact by converting excellent ideas into testable prototypes and proven reality. You will report to Komaza’s Founder & CEO, and work very closely with other senior executives.
Responsibilities
- Develop a dynamic, deep understanding of how Komaza works – the connectivity between teams, systems, and on-the-ground realities of building a for-profit, impact-driven business – and constantly think about how to improve on it.
- Recruit and lead a team of former innovation consultants, researchers, and operating experts, while inspiring a culture of collaboration and accountability.
- Build deep relationships at all levels across the organization to serve as the eyes and ears on the ground attuned to critical organizational needs and opportunities.
- Design and implement a rigorous methodology for inspiring, building, testing, and scaling blue-sky initiatives.
- Define company strategy, working closely with our Founder/CEO and others on our collaborative “Silicon Valley culture” senior team. Help build a management team committed to tenets of “JFDI” and “Go Big or Go Home.”
Qualifications
- 10+ years’ relevant work experience, ideally 4+ years program innovation consulting, or operations research and strategy from a leading company; qualitative and quantitative data are both your friends; an MBA is preferred.
- Proven experience leading high-performing teams, especially in dynamic environments. You know how to thrive in uber-growth situations. You’ve worked and thrived at a rapidly scaling company.
- Excellent communication skills with the aptitude to distill complex systems and detailed analysis into simple, structured processes with concrete action plans.
- Energetic and enthusiastic – willing to do whatever is necessary to get the job done. You’re well-organized with experience in project and change management.
- Comfort with ambiguity and uncertainty, as well as patience and perseverance in the face of serious logistical and environmental hurdles.
- Proven success working and living in Africa is strongly preferred.
Expectations
We need a VP of Ops Innovation who wants to make a meaningful commitment to building this department and delivering significant innovations for a minimum of 3-5+ years. While we will open a Nairobi office to support regional expansion in the near future, this role will be primarily based at our current headquarters in Kilifi, Kenya for the foreseeable future. The role offers competitive salary and benefits, plus equity
Application Deadline
Closing date is 14th August 2016.
HOW TO APPLY:
Please follow this LINK to apply. Closing date is 14th August 2016.
