Chief Operating Officer at Hive HR

Job Description

• Are you in for a great ride at Meadow Foods in which you bring our operations to thenext level, to serve our customers with great products and solutions that have lasting positive impact?
• We are looking for a COO who understands the dynamic of an African start up entering into a growth phase. We are looking for a down-to-earth individual and executionally strong operator.
• Someone who gets motivated by making end-to-end processes better every day: from the moment we onboard a smallholder farmer and eco-system actors, provide access to climate-smart agricultural inputs, increase the delivery and access to relevant agricultural information, extension and advisory services, ensure risk mitigation and optimized decision making, and facilitate access to premium priced markets to over 30,000 smallholder farmers across agribusiness value chains and market opportunities in Nigeria
• You are passionate about working with people and data. Focused on efficiency and quality of our service and our technology. Understanding theory and practice. In short, you’re farmer- and process obsessed!
• As COO, you are part of the Management Team and you are responsible for the Operational Excellence and the central functions of Warehouse & Logistics as well as Platform & field Operations.
• You work directly with the CEO and other key executive team members.

Your Goal

• Your ultimate goal is to provide great opportunities for our farmers and unlock bottlenecks that weaken market relationships and limit inclusive profitable participation - cost effectively.
• You will run an effective and efficient operation that has sufficient operational capacity (higher value markets for smallholder farmers through their integration into the supply chain and offer opportunities that will strengthen ecosystem partnerships) whilst complying with our brand promise (solving food problems through community partnerships) and our customer service quality standards.
• Our COO will be characterized as an inspirational leader with a heart for strategic & ‘operational’ operations. Someone who has excellent communication skills and who can motivate & create a movement in the organization.
• You bring deep knowledge, expertise and thought leadership on operational management and you have experience working in Private equity/venture capital backed scale-up companies.
• You are a natural leader who can effortlessly hire, build and lead teams in an international environment.
• In this role you will set the strategic direction of the Operations team, build/manage high performing teams and come up with operationally achievable solutions for the growth ambitions we have.
• You are a data-driven decision maker and you have the ability to think end-to-end.

Your Responsibilities

• Responsible for the strategy for a scalable platform and field approach that further optimizes the Meadow Foods supply chain efforts;
• Defines, in conjunction with the CEO, an annual operations plan and operations budgets, aligned to overall strategy and budget planning. Oversees budget of operations;
• You build and lead the central Operations Team. You understand what it takes to make teams high performing teams;
• Apart from hiring, coaching and developing the team, you establish structure in the ways of working and you will be the visionary operational leader that inspires others to go the extra mile. You will work closely together with the Product team, the Tech team, the Customer Success team and Operations team;
• Drives and manages the internal supply chain process for Meadow Foods with focus on the distribution of all products to ensure an optimal balance between product supply and off-taker demand.
• Leads the long term S&OP process together with the Commercial Director and the CTO to ensure demand and supply are matched against minimal inventory cost and data intelligence;
• Oversees the effective procurement and planning process for all products in all warehouses and in the field. Backed with intelligent data, you make your analysis, and you provide proposals for continuous improvement.
• Sign-off strategic decisions in the area of the operations in the countries we operate in, regarding: service & efficiency, purchasing & product, international expansion, CAPEX budget (related to operations).

Your Profile

• You are an excellent communicator and relationship builder with a keen interest for coaching people and managing partners at all levels of the organization.
• You bring a humble personality with a growth mindset and passion for making end-to-end processes better every day.
• You are very self-aware and low on ego.

Next to this you bring:

• Academic working and thinking level and 10+ years of working experience;
• 5 - 7 years of relevant management experience; a Degree in Supply Chain, Logistics, aproject Management preferable
• You have a proven track record fast paced international organizations and/or private equity/venture capital backed scale-up companies;
• Strong leadership, strategic thinking and a proven track record in strategic operational management;
• Ability to develop and maintain effective relationships and communication within the management team, the supervisory board and external parties;
• Strong presentation skills and the capability to inspire people to go the extra mile;
• Demonstrated business acumen combined with strong operational foundations, especially in retail/warehousing/logistics & supply chain;
• Driven by data and is able to create structure in order to create an operating model for our operations that is scalable, simple and ready for the next phases of growth;
• Excellent in English and/or local language;
• Ability to think ahead and solid understanding of financials to design performance structures around budget and KPI’s;
• You are willing to travel a significant amount of your time to visit the fields, warehouses and partners across Nigeria.

What Meadow Foods offers you

• Your have equity stake in the business!
• Lots of responsibility, challenging work, and friendly colleagues
• Learning programs developed by our L&D department
• One day off per year to do voluntary field work paid by Meadow Foods
• Hybrid work style.