Program Associate (Enterprise & Vocational Skills) at LOPTERRA

About the Role

• The Program Associate will join the team in Ekiti State to play a key role in bridging skills acquisition gap with market-driven outcomes, ensuring that women’s training and production processes translate into high-quality, commercially viable products.
• This role is ideal for a dynamic, market-oriented professional with a strong passion for social impact and women’s economic empowerment. The role is central to advancing our mission of economic justice for GBV survivors and rural women by aligning social impact objectives with sustainable business and market standards.

Job Description

• Work closely with the Production Officer to design, coordinate, and deliver skills acquisition and upskilling programmes for women producers.
• Ensure training curricula are market-informed and aligned with current demand, quality expectations, and product trends.
• Support the transition of trained women from learning into active participation in production.
• Collaborate with the Production Officer to establish, document, and enforce production guidelines, quality benchmarks, and product standards across all product lines.
• Monitor product quality and consistency across production cycles.
• Gather and analyse feedback from buyers, customers, and market partners.
• Use market feedback to inform continuous product improvement and innovation.
• Support the development and execution of the enterprise growth strategy, ensuring alignment between social impact goals and commercial viability.
• Contribute to product diversification, pricing strategies, and demand forecasting.
• Identify and pursue market entry opportunities across civil society, corporate, hospitality,
• retail, and international markets.
• Represent the enterprise at exhibitions, convenings, trade fairs, and buyer engagements.
• Identify and track grant opportunities, prizes, and catalytic funding aligned with the enterprise and livelihoods model.
• Support proposal development, including concept notes and donor submissions.
• Build and maintain relationships with partners, buyers, and ecosystem stakeholders.
• Work with communications personnel to curate compelling narratives that link the enterprise products to women’s skills, livelihoods, and resilience.
• Support the development of marketing materials, enterprise profiles, pitch decks, and product stories.
• Perform other related tasks

Requirements

• Gender Studies, Public Policy / Public Administration, Governance or Development Studies degree or equivalent qualification (including HND) in Business Administration, Economics, Development Studies, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, or a related field.
• Minimum of 1–3 years’ experience in enterprise development, social enterprise, livelihoods programming, SME support, or market systems development.
• Experience working with women-led enterprises, producer groups, or community-based production models is a strong advantage.
• Strong understanding of market-driven enterprise development and value chains.
• Experience linking skills development or training programmes to income-generating outcomes.
• Knowledge of product quality standards, pricing, and market positioning.
• Strong research, proposal writing, and donor engagement skills.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and partnership management skills.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Ability to work across strategy and execution in fast-moving, resource-constrained environments.