Job Openings at Pula

The Commercial Manager at Pula is far from the typical sales role. You must be passionate about having meaning in your work. Willing to go the extra mile to evangelize the importance of agriculture insurance in transforming the lives of millions of smallholder farmers across multiple stakeholders from the political elites, to the Government systems, to development agencies all the way down to the farmer. For you to be successful at the role, one must consider it their mission – “how you will be remembered”. Whilst at it, you will be rewarded very well as we believe in “doing good and doing well”. When impacting hundreds of millions of farmers, our mantra is that those successful in the mission must be dollar millionaires in the end. At Pula, good deeds are rewarded.

In this role you’ll;

Expanding your networks, influence and Pula’s positioning in the region

• Constantly building deeply entrenched relationships that will enable one to understand client needs, gather market intelligence and build a credible pipeline of opportunities. To succeed in the role, one must incredible enjoy building new relationships and leveraging on relationships to achieve your goals.
• Effectively communicate value propositions through presentations and proposals
• Act as the Pula spokesperson in the region.
• Using knowledge of the market and competitors in the regions, identify and develop the company’s unique selling propositions and differentiators.

Business Development

• Defining Commercial objective key results in your region and ownership of the results.
• Research, prepare and execute a sales plan focused on delivering new and recurring revenues through partnerships with agro-input companies and the public sector.
• Develop pipeline and continuously mature & qualify opportunities in order to increase Pula’’s market share and to enable achievement of sales target.
• Generating and qualifying new leads and using different approaches to penetrate prospective clients in your region. You are expected to qualify opportunities, know which deals to work on, and which ones to pass on.
• Progress prospects through a defined sales process to eventual contracting and implementation.

Customer Relationship Management

• Manage and nurture existing client relationships across a wide range of stakeholders including commodity associations, farmers’ aggregators, insurers, government and private companies.
• Manage the handover of new customers to the operations team for the implementation of the solution.
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What you need to be successful

• You have experience in strong demonstrable sales to development agencies, governments and / or financial institutions.
• You have demonstrable success working against a sales quota target.
• You have experience working with Development Agencies and / or Government officials at all levels and navigating government structures.
• Critical Thinking Skills. You must have the ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions
• Behavioural Skills. You must be self-directed, work well alone or in a team structure, highly results oriented, and willing to learn and expand his/her technical and product knowledge base through formal education, professional training, and self-study.
• You have knowledge and understanding of dealing with C-suite executives with excellent communication and presentation skills, integrity and impeccable professionalism.
• Sales and or consulting experience in the area of agriculture: seed / fertilizer / agrochemical industry or related is a significant advantage.
• Experience and knowledge in the insurance industry will place you at an advantage.
• You have the ability to use data and KPIs to make management decisions.
• You are fully comfortable with sales CRM platforms, Google Drive applications such as Google Sheets, Google Docs etc.

Field Coordinator

Under the direct supervision of the Field Associate Manager – Kenya, the Field Coordinator shall provide full support to the field team with all necessary project activities to ensure maximum efficiency on the ground. The ideal candidate learns quickly, is resourceful and has experience managing teams and running a field project.

In this role, you’ll:

• Participate in field agents recruitment; select, assign, schedule, coach, counsel and discipline employees.
• Management of field agents
• Conducting field agents training.
• Assisting in  client training/mobilization/workshops
• Management  and support for  crop cut exercises.
• Management support for  yield index insurance payouts, if necessary.
• Data collection and data management: that is, refining the study design and survey instruments, overseeing and monitoring data collection exercises using the Business Intelligence dashboard and assisting with data quality queries.
• Coordination with client field staff and insurance auditors.
• Escalating issues experienced in the field.
• Help to go to the field to diagnose issues when required.
• Help set project budgets, record keeping for expenses and reconciliation against the budget for each project.
• Help with internal data audits when required
• Handling and resolving customer complaints from farmers and stakeholders as needed
• Assisting in product launches when required.
• Identify good performers, and transparently and honestly reports on non-performing staff
• Clear and consistent communication up and down the reporting lines.
• Any other duties as requested by management
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What you will need to be successful 

• A BSc degree in  Project Management, Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness or a degree in Business/ management related field.
• 2+ years of experience working with clients, project teams, farmers, field teams and agro dealers.
• You are located in one of these locations; Narok, Bomet, Kericho, Nakuru, Migori, Bungoma, Kakamega, Trans Nzoia, West Pokot, Uasin Gishu, Elgeyo Marakwet and Nandi
• Experience in data collection and data management.
• Skills to interact with clients, farmers, field teams and agro dealers.
• Ability to work independently in a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, and multicultural environment
• Excellent communication and organizational skills
• Intermediate Excel skills is an added advantage