Chief Operating Officer
Living Goods Chief Operating Officer
Minimum Experience: Senior Executive
Sought: Outstanding Talent, True Leadership
Living Goods (LG) is leading a new era in global development. Our award-winning model empowers local health entrepreneurs to go door-to-door teaching families how to improve their health and wealth and selling life-changing, life-saving products. Best of class independent research shows this hybrid model reduces needless deaths by 25%, and sustainably finances the products and agent compensation. The dramatic impact and sustainability of this novel approach is attracting tremendous resources to grow LG. In short, LG stands at the vanguard of change in global development. With this momentum, Living Goods aims to improve the lives of 50 million people in the next 10 years.
Your opportunity is this: play a leadership role in an organization, and a movement, that is changing how we think and act at the intersection of international development, business, and local empowerment.
This will require exceptional executive leadership, first-rate operations management, and large-scale partnership development, but also a proven track record of innovation at scale in international development. We seek a truly outstanding individual who wants to excel personally and contribute to clearly measurable, transformational change.
Chief Operating Officer
LG seeks an experienced and resourceful COO to lead our teams through a time of dramatic growth and expansion. Recently concluded independent research proves that LG delivers transformative change in regions struggling with endemic poverty and ill health. As a result we are expanding, and attracting substantial resources and talent to do so.
Our new COO will play a pivotal role in this crucial moment. S/he will work directly with the CEO to drive organizational strategy, develop and maintain critical partnerships, oversee operations across East Africa and new territories as we grow, and help build a replicable model that will scale globally. In short, this leader will ultimately share a great deal of responsibility for the success of the organization and improving the lives of millions of clients.
Our ideal candidate will bring a blended background of private & public sector experience, with demonstrated success in leading complex organizations, cultivating talent, managing large contracts and partnerships, and functioning well in emerging economies. This role is ideally based in East Africa, in either Kampala or Nairobi, with frequent travel. A home base in the San Francisco region will be considered provided the candidate is willing and able to establish and maintain a substantial physical presence in East Africa.
Responsibilities
Leadership
- Lead recruiting strategy and execution to strengthen and deepen our best of class in-country management teams.
- Oversee performance management, mentoring, leadership development and career planning in order to: achieve LG’s strategic goals; meet LG’s human impact, sales, and profit targets.
Operations
- Oversee marketing and sales efforts to significantly expand the network of franchised entrepreneurs and scale our operations to reach millions in need.
- Lead LG’s mission-critical partnerships team to drive scaled, systemic change by helping visionary NGOs, governments, funders and companies to replicate the LG model.
- Lead local efforts to win major institutional grants and government contracts to finance the rapid growth of Living Goods and our partners.
- Build successful relationships with vital partners including local governments, global corporates and NGOs.
- Supervise the development of our cutting edge mobile apps, reporting tools and backbone systems in collaboration with our in house tech team and key vendors to drive profit, improve performance and lower the cost of quality control.
- Oversee product development and procurement functions to ensure strong sales, margins and impact. Continually test new products to drive profits and impact gains.
- Oversee financial accounting and reporting functions.
Strategy
- Collaborate with the CEO and executive team to develop strategy, business plans, and budgets.
- Help steward the organizational brand and culture, leading the team to live our core values of delivering impact every day for our customers, maximizing sustainability, reaching for systemic change, mastering the art of collaboration and driving game-changing innovation through nimble experimentation.
- Guide the evolution of Living Goods’ impact strategy to maximize gains in health and wealth for our customers.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- Eight years of experience in running a large organization or division with at least 50 staff.
- Demonstrated operational success focused on building and leading teams, achieving significant performance and growth targets that are relevant across an enterprise, and advancing to new levels of responsibility.
- Background leading operations for large organizations including success winning and managing major bi-lateral aid funded projects and collaborating with government ministries.
- History of successfully managing projects in complex, multinational environments.
- Blended sectoral experience among at least two of the following: private sector, large NGO, public health agency.
- Significant executive management experience in challenging developing economies: e.g. Africa, Middle East, or Indian sub-continent.
- Strong financial management, budgeting and accounting acumen.
- Willingness to travel regularly.
Preferred Qualifications
- Large international NGO experience.
- Private sector experience preferred in one of the following fields: consumer package goods, public health, pharmaceuticals, retail, direct selling/franchising, or microfinance.
- Know-how in any of the following is an added bonus: managing large field sales teams, consumer product development and sourcing, consumer lending, and mobile marketing.
Compensation
A competitive salary and benefits package commensurate with experience, including generous health insurance and vacation policies. Bonus opportunity will be available based on organizational performance.
To Apply
Email a cover letter and resume to livinggoods@schaffercombs.com. Please include your name and the title for this position (“Your name – Chief Operating Officer”) in the subject line of your email.
Schaffer&Combs has been retained by Living Goods to manage the Chief Operating Officer search. We are a dynamic management consulting firm that solves problems and provides growth solutions for mission driven organizations.
What is Living Goods?
At LG we believe the poor deserve better health, a better deal, and a chance at a better life. LG supports networks of ‘Avon-like’ micro-entrepreneurs who go door-to-door teaching families how to improve their health and wealth while selling life-changing products like basic medicines, fortified foods, water filters, clean cook stoves, and solar lights. LG seeks nothing less than a disruptive reinvention of distribution in emerging markets, through networks of franchised micro-entrepreneurs who leverage LG’s brand, buying power and mobile marketing tools to deliver vital products and services at accessible prices to the people who need them most. By combining the best practices from the worlds of micro-enterprise, franchising and public health, LG is creating a sustainable system to improve the health and wealth of underserved communities.
In Uganda, LG is growing national networks of franchised Community Health entrepreneurs who offer treatments and pregnancy care. Recent research proves this system is reducing under-5 mortality by over 20%, at a net cost per person of less than $2 a year. We plan to grow our reach in Uganda fivefold in the next four years. Living Goods also launched a consulting division to help organizations around the world adapt and scale our success. Living Goods has been featured in The New York Times, NBC News, The Economist, and The Huffington Post. Check out these articles and more on our press page.
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