Senior Program Manager, Agriculture, Resilience and Water

Position Title: Senior Program Manager

Location: Arlington, Virginia; Little Rock, Arkansas; or Remote

Department: Agriculture, Resilience, and Water

Reports To: Director, Agriculture, Resilience, and Water

Winrock International (Winrock) is a non-profit organization that works around the world to increase economic opportunity, sustain natural resources, and protect the environment. Winrock strengthens the capacity of women, children, youth, civil society organizations, and businesses to actively participate in sustainable development and to positively impact society.

Agriculture, Resilience and Water (ARW) Group: The Agriculture, Resilience and Water (ARW) group partners with communities, businesses, and government to develop scalable market-oriented solutions that advance inclusive agriculture led growth and water security, ultimately building the resilience of households to recover from predictable and unforeseen shocks. ARW’s approach to making agriculture, market access, and water systems more resilient has three focus areas: 1) improving agricultural production and water management systems, especially among the most vulnerable; 2) strengthening natural resource management; and 3) reducing environmental degradation. We also work with communities, public and private sectors to safeguard critical ecosystems. Currently, ARW manages a portfolio of 13 projects across 16 countries, totaling over $231 million dollars. Implementation is focused on partnership, as well as technical and data-driven innovations and learning, adapting, and scaling proven models. 

POSITION SUMMARY: This position will support a recently awarded 5-year Feed the Future Activity focused on catalyzing the transformation of Nepal’s agricultural sector in support of inclusive economic growth. The Senior Program Manager will provide technical assistance and project implementation oversight to this and other programs that increase agricultural productivity, improve agribusiness competitiveness, and support resilience of vulnerable communities. The Senior Program Manager will liaise daily with relevant field offices and supervise the work of one or more Program Associates. The position involves overseeing, coordinating, and monitoring project activities; preparing, reviewing, and managing project budgets; ensuring compliance with USG procedures; providing quality assurance of technical reports and other deliverables; communicating with field staff; and liaising with donors. The Senior Program Manager is responsible for ensuring programmatic, budgetary, and implementation excellence; facilitating strong and regular communication with the field; providing rapid and ongoing support to Chiefs of Party; and representing Winrock at agriculture and resilience events.

The candidate is also expected to significantly contribute to proposal development and program design efforts, including leading or writing proposals or other roles as needed to expand Winrock’s funding and partnership opportunities.

The position requires international travel (approximately 25%).

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Serve as Senior Program Manager for assigned projects, working closely with project teams to develop project strategies, work plans, budgets, and reports.
• Track and monitor programs, as assigned, to ensure they are fulfilling deliverable and performance requirements at a high quality, on time, and on budget.
• Contribute to conceptualizing and developing new programming in the areas of agriculture and resilience.
• Participate in new business development and where appropriate, serve in key roles for new business capture and proposal development working with multi-disciplinary teams from the programs, new business, and cost and pricing units
• Manage information dissemination and electronic communications among relevant parties, including project teams, internal groups, and external audiences.
• Build and maintain relationships with current and future donors, partners, and external audiences.
• Promote programming strategies that go beyond individual beneficiary-level impacts to promote systemic change, ownership, sustainability, and scalability.
• Develop and maintain close communications with host country government counterparts, local organizations, field personnel, and sub-awardees to strengthen maintain partnership networks and strengthen implementation, monitoring, and compliance.
• Supervise assigned Program Associate(s), as needed, providing direct support and guidance.
• Serve as budget manager for projects to ensure effective financial management including tracking of budgets, monthly field spending, obligations, and subawards, and flag issues for field as needed.
• Prepare and oversee the preparation of project deliverables, including writing and doing initial technical reviews.
• Provide final review of subawards and procurement documents and provide feedback to field team and Program Associate prior to circulation for approval.
• Travel to the field to conduct training, oversight, monitoring, and strategic relationship building.
• Represent Winrock at external events, nationally and internationally.

QUALIFICATIONS AND BACKGROUND:

Education: Bachelor’s degree in education, social sciences, international development, or related field. Master’s degree preferred.

Experience: Minimum of seven+ (7+) years’ experience in international development, especially in home office management, financial oversight, technical project management, and donor compliance;

• USAID project management experience required;
• USAID contracts experience required, Feed the Future experience preferred;
• Experience with agriculture or resilience programs strongly preferred;
• Demonstrated success in proposal development for US Government or other donors;
• Experience training field staff and coaching and mentoring junior staff required;
• Local implementation experience preferred.

Skills:

• Ability to communicate effectively with donors, local partners and host country governments
• Adept at project planning, budgeting, management, and financial analysis
• Demonstrated skills in project management to achieve targets within scope, budget, and on time; certification in PMD Pro/Project dPro a plus
• Excellent written and oral communication skills for project management, donor and partner relations, and new business development
• Ability to meet deadlines and manage multiple tasks, and work under pressure while ensuring quality
• Demonstrated strong analytical capability and problem-solving abilities required
• Ability to collaborate effectively with colleagues and foster a positive working environment
• Ability to always demonstrate the highest level of ethical standards
• Experience in comprehensive inclusion of GESI considerations into effective programming
• Fluent English is required, competency in additional foreign languages preferred
• Willingness and ability to travel internationally

The salary range for this role is set between $115,000 and $125,000, with the majority of candidates typically landing within the midpoint of this range, there is an additional 10% contribution for a 403b annually and an excellent benefits package.

Winrock is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and value diversity and inclusiveness. Winrock recruits, employs, trains, promotes and compensates regardless of race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, or any other basis protected by law.

At Winrock we have a clear mission: Empower the disadvantaged, increase economic opportunity and sustain natural resources through unwavering dedication to accountability, equity, innovation, integrity and transformation.

Winrock knows that its success comes from the hard work and steadfast dedication of its diverse workforce. Winrock remains committed to maintaining diversity, inclusion and equity across the entire organization