Regional Business Development Manager-Manager

Key skills

Core Business

Additional/Preferred Skills

Fund raising

Preferred Qualifications

Masters degree

Regional Business Development Manager – West & Central Africa

ICRISAT seeks applications from qualified and experienced candidates for the position of Regional Business Development Manager – West & Central Africa, based at one of the ICRISAT offices in West Africa (Dakar, Senegal; Accra, Ghana; Bamako, Mali; Niamey, Niger).  The successful applicant will report to the ICRISAT Director of Business Development in Hyderabad, India.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi- arid or dryland tropics has over 2 billion people and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations to overcome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agricultural production systems.

ICRISAT is headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions a prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics. ICRISAT conducts research on its mandate crops of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-arid tropics. The Institute focuses its work on sustainable agriculture approaches and technologies across the drylands. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor and perennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping dryland communities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Please visit – www.icrisat.org

Responsibilities:

ICRISAT's Business Development Unit advances the organization’s strategic position by engaging new and existing institutional donors to acquire and steward resources that deliver excellent programs to advance ICRISAT’s strategy across the world’s drylands. Business Development focuses on three main areas: engaging donors and strategic partners, acquiring new business, and delivering on the outcomes as outlined in the institutional award agreements, in compliance with donor requirements. The Regional Business Development (BD) Manager – West & Central Africa (WCA) is part of ICRISAT's Business Development Unit, which is a team that provides high-quality surge support to ICRISAT country programs, regions and Global Research Programs on strategic funding opportunities. This position will provide specialized assistance in all dimensions of the BD cycle to cross-disciplines and cross-functional teams in West and Central Africa.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Core Business Development Activities

·Provide BD expertise in positioning, capture planning and proposal preparation for specific opportunities with institutional donors (government and inter-governmental award issuing organizations, as well as foundations, corporations and other awarding non-governmental organizations). Emphasis will be on multilateral and bilateral development cooperation agencies (US Government, European Union, other OECD DAC donor states, multilateral trust funds, international research programs, foundations and philanthropies, and high net-worth individuals/home office wealth) across both assistance and acquisition mechanisms.

·Serve as a proposal coordinator or other lead role on a proposal team, ensuring the timely submission of high-quality proposals that are responsive to donor requirements, applicable regulations, and ICRISAT’s technical and budgeting standards.

·Lead and support proposal budget processes, working with technical staff, management and partner staff to integrate inputs into responsive, cost competitive proposal budgets.

·Lead and/or support development of ICRISAT BD tools, resources and guidance on BD best practices and ICRISAT approaches across the BD cycle.

·Train and mentor staff, as needed, to improve their skills in proposal development, representation to donor and partner organizations, intelligence-gathering, and marketing within their country program or portfolio.

·Support and guide identification of partners and negotiation of ICRISAT’s role on proposal consortia, ensuring a competitive position for ICRISAT that adheres to the organization's partnership principles and strategic directions.

·As appropriate, support senior management to cultivate and strengthen institutional relationships with institutional donors, partner organizations and other stakeholders.

·Serve as a Regional Point of Contact with one or more ICRISAT regions, maintaining regular contact with other BD staff to identify surge support needs and serving as a resource for targeted BD guidance.

·Actively contribute to ICRISAT’s Business Development Community of Practice and advance ICRISAT's Business Development practices through contributions to strategic initiatives and annual summits.

2. Due Diligence

·Maintain, update and manage repository of the grants and contracts in the SalesForce portal. Share institutional information and past project experiences to scientists for including in the project proposals as required.

·Oversee and support the Grants Management Officer for background notes, donor flyers, aide memoire, donors database, newsletters and alerts

3. Donor, Partner, and Competitor Research and Market Intelligence

·Oversee, along with Manager – Grants Management, the intelligence data needed for fundraising strategies.

·Contribute and oversee generation of MIS reports on projects pipeline, grants and contracts periodically as required for the management

4. Knowing Donor Procurement Processes

·Conduct due diligence of new NGOs and Private Sector partner institutions to assess their eligibility for collaboration with ICRISAT in bilateral projects. Process to renew due diligence approval of existing NGOs and Private Sector Partner Institutions after expiry of term.

Requirement and Essential criteria:

·Master’s degree in International Development, Science, Agriculture, Environmental Conservation, Natural Resource Management, and/or any such similar related subject.

·At least 4-5 years of experience in fundraising, business development, resource mobilization, and/or strategic partnerships, including marketing and positioning, in nature conservation, international development, and humanitarian action.

·Required Languages - Fluency in English required; working ability in French and/or Portuguese would be interesting.

·Travel - Must be willing and able to travel up to 25%, particularly across West and Central Africa.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

·Strong strategic, analytical, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture.

·Strong relations management abilities. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Strategic in how you approach each relationship.

·Excellent negotiation skills.

·Strong communications and presentation skills.

·Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented and results-oriented.

QUALIFICATIONS

Basic Qualifications:

·Master's degree in international development, international relations, or related field. 

·Minimum five years of international development experience.

·Three years' experience in a developing country preferred.

Preferred Qualifications:

·Demonstrated experience utilizing diverse, proactive strategies to competitively position his/her organization for new funding and productive institutional relationships.

·Demonstrated experience leading and producing competitive applications and proposals in programming contexts similar to ICRISAT. Strong preference for experience leading complex US government proposal processes, including in response to USAID RFAs or RFPs.

·Demonstrated experience developing budgets for a variety of donors including USAID, AUSAID, Global Affairs Canada, UKAid (FCDO), the European Union, and bilateral development cooperation agencies from EU Member States; experience with both cooperative agreements/grants and contract mechanisms highly desired.

·Comprehensive familiarity with a broad range of institutional donor technical and cost requirements, with a strong preference for those of key US government donor agencies (USAID, USDA, USFS, US DOS, US BHRM, etc.).

·Knowledge of and experience with both USAID RFP and RFA funding mechanisms highly desirable.

·Familiarity with relevant institutional donor regulations, policies, procedures and priorities.

·Demonstrated experience managing teams and processes, leading teams to produce deliverables under tight deadlines and at exceptional quality. Experience providing remote support to diverse teams strongly preferred.

·Experience in developing content for and facilitating trainings related to key business development practices. Knowledge of adult learning approaches desired.

·Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.

Supervisory Responsibilities: None

Key Working Relationships:

Internal: ICRISAT Regional Director – WCA, Senior ICRISAT staff and scientists based in WCA, ICRISAT Project Managers in WCA, Director – Business Development, Senior Business Development Manager, and others as required

External: Country Directors, Head of Programs, Business Development Managers, Senior Technical Advisors, Project Managers, Principal Investigators / Scientists, etc.

Organization-wide Competencies (for all ICRISAT Staff)

These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of ICRISAT and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.

üIntegrity

üContinuous Improvement & Innovation

üBuilds Relationships

üDevelops Talent

üStrategic Mindset

üAccountability & Stewardship

General:

This is a contractual role for a period of 36 months (3 years).

How to apply:

Applicants should apply on or before 15 March 2023, with their latest Curriculum Vitae, and the names and contact information of three references that are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer