Director of Global Procurement

About TechnoServe:

At TechnoServe, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to build a better life. For over 50 years, we have given smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs the skills, connections, and confidence to lift themselves out of poverty. We leverage the power of markets and the private sector to create sustainable economic growth to benefit people and the planet. Our unique mix of business solutions, deep knowledge of local contexts, and data-driven insights is helping to fight poverty across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

TechnoServe staff are local-95% are from the countries in which they work. We put a high premium on collaboration and entrepreneurship. We hold ourselves and each other to the highest standards of integrity and transparency. And we focus on delivering lasting impact for our mission.

Job Summary:

Reporting to the General Counsel, the Director will lead TechnoServe's Global Procurement function, ensuring cost-efficiency through competitive bids, compliance with external regulations and internal policy, and effective user-friendly procurement systems. The Director leads a small team of regional Procurement staff, responsible for ensuring local procurements are processed in a compliant and timely manner and develops global tools and processes to provide ongoing support to internal clients managing programs and support departments. Additionally, the Director promotes TechnoServe's organizational culture of compliance and accountability through global education, training, and community-building.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities:

• Ensure that TechnoServe's procurement practices and approaches are consistent with TechnoServe's organizational goals and values, and support high-quality program implementation.
• Design and improve user-friendly systems and processes for procurement, including policies, procedures, templates, and tools to facilitate purchasing and contracting of vendors.
• Structure organizational procurement systems and staffing, prioritizing efficiency, effectiveness and compliance.
• Oversee a process for annual procurement planning for all country offices and major regional projects with the goals of streamlining program delivery and maximizing program impact through cost savings.
• Manage the full lifecycle of our procurement systems-from initial design and implementation to ongoing maintenance-to ensure all accurate tracking of procurement data.
• Lead processes and management of external consultants, including contracts and payments.
• With a particular emphasis on fraud detection and prevention, monitor procurement data to proactively raise and address risks, leading investigations around procurement irregularities and/or allegations, as needed.
• Recruit, mentor, and manage an appropriate team to support TechnoServe's procurement efforts around the world.
• Initiate and facilitate a community for technical collaboration and ongoing support/training among TechnoServe's global procurement team.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree + 12 years relevant experience in managing procurement for complex donor-funded international development organizations. Or a Master's Degree + 8 years experience.
• Strong systems orientation, with a track record of improving and enhancing existing procurement management technologies, developing new solutions, and maintaining an awareness of and willingness to use new and emerging platforms.
• Experience managing globally dispersed teams

Required Languages: Fluency in written and spoken English

Travel: Travel up to 25 %

Preferred Qualifications:

• French, Spanish, or Portuguese language skills are desirable.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to provide mentorship to staff in both direct reporting and matrix management relationships.
• Ability to negotiate consensus among peers and colleagues in solving complex problems.
• Strong organizational and problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
• Ability to work independently and efficiently in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
• Ability to travel for up to two weeks at a time on short notice.

Supervisory Responsibilities: 3-4 geographically dispersed managers.

Note: We are prioritizing candidates located in a commutable distance to either our US Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, or Nairobi, Kenya. Please only apply to the Director of Global Procurement requisition that is posted in your preferred market. Candidates applying for the position in the US must be eligible for employment in the US at the time of application.

We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe's vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply.

With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability and all other protected classes.

We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks.

If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources at recruitment@tns.org or call +1 202 785 4515.