Country Manager - Zambia
Lusaka
Leadership /
Full Time /
On-site
About Apollo Agriculture
Apollo Agriculture is a leading agri-fintech platform empowering small-scale farmers across Africa to increase their profits and farm more sustainably. Apollo uses artificial intelligence and automated operations to unlock the massive, untapped small-scale farming market. Apollo enables farmers to access the optimized financing, high-quality farm products, expert digital advice, and risk management solutions they need to invest and scale their businesses. Apollo grew paying customers over 2.5x in 2023 to over 200K small-scale farmers in Kenya and Zambia, increasing revenue to nearly $30M with robust unit economics. Apollo partners with key global agriculture companies like Bayer, OCP and Yara, and is backed by Anthemis, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Flourish Ventures, Leaps by Bayer, and Softbank Vision Fund. Apollo’s team brings together technology, credit and operations experience from The Climate Corporation, Google, Capital One, Revolut, and One Acre Fund.
About the role
Apollo is looking for a Country Manager to rapidly scale our business and impact in Zambia. Our ambition is to grow 10x in the next 2-3 years and we are looking for an experienced leader who can scale our operations across the country and identify and implement new business opportunities. This role will report to our Head of New Markets.
Responsibilities:
- Scale and continuously improve our operations across the country:
- Develop Zambia’s expansion strategy to serve 100,000+ farmers in the next 2-3 years
- Create and follow a budget for Zambia together with your manager
- Develop a pathway to profitability for our operation in the near future and successfully track toward this goal
- Manage and iteratively improve our sales process end to end to achieve sales targets
- Achieve strong repayment in collaboration with our Credit & Repayments team. Leverage best practices from our global team and develop new initiatives for the Zambian market where needed to ensure high repayment among Apollo customers
- Together with our Logistics and Procurement functions, develop strategies and partnership to increase the efficiency and cost competitiveness of our input sourcing
- Create a strategy and visions for other opportunities in Zambia that contribute to our growth:
- Ensure that suitable products are developed for the Zambian market (together with Product and Credit Teams)
- Work with the Global Leadership team to develop a long term vision for Zambia to create more impact amongst smallholder farmers
- Manage relationships with key suppliers and partners in the country. Build critical relationships that will enable Apollo to scale in Zambia
- Develop a strong team and relationships in Zambia:
- Build and manage a team of strong managers, associates, field staff and support staff. Invest in the development of your team
- Uphold and instill Apollo’s mission, vision, values and culture in the organization in Zambia
You:
- Have 10+ years of professional experience, of which at least 5 years experience in managing teams.
- You are equally capable of developing high-level strategies as well as working with your team on creating and implementing detailed commercial and operational plans
- Are a strategic and analytical thinker who can analyze complex business challenges and independently investigate when things go wrong. You are comfortable in excel and powerpoint and leveraging them to investigate and communicate.
- Are a tireless problem solver who can roll up your sleeves to tackle whatever challenges need urgent attention, no matter when they arise. You have a “whatever it takes” attitude and are comfortable managing both strategic initiatives and getting “your hands dirty” to get the job done
- Can turn complex information into digestible and actionable insights and can communicate effectively to a broad range of audiences and stakeholders; you exercise excellent judgment about what level of information is necessary to enable efficient decision making
- Are result oriented and have experience working with targets and budgets
We:
- Are a collaborative team of smart and ambitious people who are dedicated to serving our customers.
- Make magic happen to solve hard problems and always come with solutions when challenges arise.
- Are comfortable taking risks that can result in radical scale, and understand that failures are opportunities to learn and improve.
- Are considerate listeners and take the time to deeply understand and seek out ideas from the people around us, even when we disagree.
- Offer a dynamic environment that fosters talent, collaboration and growth.
- Take pride in our work and share the responsibility to see it through from conception to deployment.
- Back up our talk with a competitive compensation and benefits package and challenging projects.
- Value autonomy, honesty, transparency, and respect.
- Are excited to hear from you!
Eligibility
Apollo can support a work permit for this role. However, nationals of (or those with an extensive professional background and work history in) Zambia are preferred.
Apollo Agriculture does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. Apollo Agriculture is an equal opportunity/equal access employer fully committed to achieving a diverse workforce.
Apollo Agriculture is committed to providing a safe and productive learning and living community. To achieve that goal, we may conduct background investigations for all final candidates being considered for employment. Background checks may include, but are not limited to, criminal history, national sex offender search and motor vehicle history.
