Summary of the Position

Summary of the Organization

Semilla Nueva fights malnutrition with better corn seeds. The organization has a team of 50 employees, mostly based in Guatemala, and is supported by some of the world’s most prestigious donors, including USAID, Mulago, Rippleworks, and many others. Semilla Nueva develops high-yielding, climate-resilient maize seeds that have been conventionally bred (non-GMO) to have higher levels of the most important
missing nutrients: zinc, iron, and quality protein. Our approach to large-scale adoption of these sedes relies on three strategies:

1. Breeding the world’s best seeds to have higher level of nutrients, resulting in new seeds that can increase incomes and prevent crop losses for farmers who currently use older hybrid seeds or Open-Pollinated Varieties (OPVs);
2. Piloting subsidies to seed companies to profitably sell new, higher-yielding, climate resilient,
   biofortified seeds at prices the poorest of the poor can afford.
3. Working with governments to institutionalize these subsidies. Our goal is for a minimal amount of subsidy to support hundreds of thousands of farming families to use biofortified seeds, consume biofortified maize, and sell biofortified maize into the market, while improving their incomes. The biofortified maize sold in the market will be purchased and eaten bymillions of poor consumers, improving the nutrition of these populations. Our seed was sold by threeseed companies in 2022 in Guatemala, reaching over 20,000 farmers and feeding 800,000 people. Our seed is being piloted by the government of El Salvador, tested in Honduras, and in development for Eastern Africa.

Specific Tasks

• CEO and COO relationship: This position is envisioned to serve as an organizational integrator asexplained in Gene Wickman’s Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) series. A Good introduction of the integrator role can be found here. The CEO and COO manage the relationship with the board of directors as a team.
• Leadership Team Management:
• Lead planning and review processes
• Integrate departments/major functions
• Day to day management of the leadership team
• Oversee people developmente. Develop lean systems to increase accountability and improve performance

Departmental management:

• Oversee Semilla Nueva’s R&D director who leads the development of new seeds, seed development technologies (such as CRISPR/gene editing), exploration of new technologies, and partnerships with other organizations.
• Oversee Semilla Nueva’s operations director who leads support and subsidies for otherseed companies that sell biofortified seeds in Guatemala and soon El Salvador, Semilla Nueva’s sales, publicity and promotion campaigns, impact data collection, and leads operational involvement with partners, studies, and government initiative.
• Oversee Semilla Nueva’s financial and administration director, who leads Budget projections and execution, hiring, legal compliance, team culture, and financial reports to donors.
• Oversee Semilla Nueva’s M&E director, who improves systems to measure impact on farmers and consumers, develops and implements third party studies, and oversees impact reporting to donors and partners.
• Oversee Semilla Nueva’s fundraising director who is responsible for identifying new donors, preparing messaging and communication, overseeing donor development, proposal writing, and relationship management. The CEO will need to be used consistently for fundraising but process management will be overseen by the fundraising lead.
• Oversee Semilla Nueva’s public policy director lead who is responsible for leading coalition building and projects to lead governments to fund our subsidy program.

Qualifications:

Required:

• A minimum of 15 years of organizational management experience
• Master’s degree in business, administration, international development, or agronomy with at least 10+ years of experience
• Experience living and working in Latin America (Guatemala preferred)
• Demonstrated leadership roles at a prior organization
• Demonstrated success in people management
• Demonstrated success building and executing systems or processes
• Demonstrated decision taking skills working in unpredictable environments
• Experience designing and managing budgets and plans
• Skilled with Microsoft office suite (Adobe Suite, SAP, Salesforce, digital data collection platforms preferred)
• Fluent Spanish and English

Desired

• Seed business experience
• Consulting experience

Expectations:

• Minimum commitment three years
• Ability to work independently, proactively, and prioritize/coordinate a variety of activities
• Ability to work effectively in a multicultural team
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, constantly evolving work environment
• Comfortable driving in Guatemala, with a valid driver’s license
• Salary: $150-200k / year, Commensurate with experience

Compensation and Location

• Based in Guatemala
• Salary: $150-200,000/year
• Competitive benefits package

To apply please review our website and read the last two biannual reports on our website. Then send your CV to Trabajo@semillanueva.org with the subject, COO and your last name. Please include 3-8 bullet points in the body of the email detailing how your experience or creativity would assist you to develop the leadership team in our current period of growth–and why working at Semilla Nueva could be good for your career.

Semilla Nueva is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to sustaining a diverse community with a work environment that is welcoming, respectful, and encouraging to all. We foster a culture of inclusion that celebrates and cultivates diversity along multiple dimensions, including race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, out of home care, age, national origin, socioeconomic status, religion, ability, culture, and experience.