Zambia People Lead

Job description

Seeking a Senior People Leader to own Zambia’s People function and serve as a strategic partner to the COO. You will design and execute a comprehensive People strategy with a heavy emphasis on building a culture of continuous learning and professional growth. Beyond ensuring operational excellence for a scaling program of 200+ staff, you will spearhead Learning and Development initiatives, mentor HR talent, and develop the internal pipelines necessary to sustain our rapid expansion.

About One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund equips 5.5 million smallholder farmers to make their farms more productive. Across nine countries that together are home to two-thirds of Africa’s farmers, we provide high-quality farm supplies, tree seedlings, accessible credit, modern agronomic training, and a wide range of other agricultural services. On average, this model enables any farmer to increase their income and assets on supported land by more than 35 percent, while permanently improving their resilience. This is all made possible by our team of 9,000+ full-time staff, drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. To learn more, please see our Why Work Here blog post.

One Acre Fund runs a pilot program in Zambia’s Central Province. Our Zambia pilot is exploring ways we can help farmers improve harvests on larger plots of land, which are common in the country. Our office in Zambia is located in Kabwe, the capital of the Central Province.

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior People Leader to own Zambia’s People function and serve as a strategic partner to the COO. You will design and execute a comprehensive People strategy with a heavy emphasis on building a culture of continuous learning and professional growth. Beyond ensuring operational excellence for a scaling program of 200+ staff, you will spearhead Learning and Development initiatives, mentor HR talent, and develop the internal pipelines necessary to sustain our rapid expansion.

You will report to the Deputy Country Manager.

Responsibilities

Lead Zambia’s People strategy and function

• Serve as the senior People partner to the COO and country leadership team, helping shape and execute Zambia’s People strategy for a rapidly scaling program.
• Provide oversight and accountability for the Zambia People function, ensuring strong HR operations, people systems, and staff support across HQ and field teams.
• Identify, prioritize, and address organizational and people challenges before they become structural barriers to growth, performance, or staff experience.

Build staff capability through learning and development

• Design and implement practical learning and development strategies that improve staff capability and performance across field and HQ teams.
• Develop and oversee training programs including workshops, bootcamps, coaching approaches, onboarding systems, and repeatable learning tools.
• Partner with Field, Impact, and Global teams to strengthen learning outcomes and improve consistency and quality of execution across teams.

Strengthen people systems, culture, and staff experience

• Improve core people systems, including onboarding, career pathing, feedback loops, and staff development processes to support engagement, retention, and long-term growth.
• Support the development of a healthy, high-performing team culture through practical and sustainable staff experience initiatives.
• Use performance data, surveys, feedback, and field observations to identify organizational capability gaps and improve staff effectiveness.

Lead and develop People and Corporate Operations staff

• Mentor and develop HR and Corporate Operations staff, building stronger management capability, ownership, and execution across the team.
• Support performance management, prioritization, and professional development of direct reports and broader People team members.
• Build systems and ways of working that improve team effectiveness, accountability, and service delivery as the Zambia program continues to scale.

Career Growth and Development

We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

• Experience managing or mentoring junior team members, with a demonstrated ability to develop others.
• Proven track record in designing and delivering training or capacity-building programs that improve performance.
• Strong facilitation skills and the ability to make complex ideas clear, practical, and usable.
• Experience using data, such as surveys, feedback, performance metrics, or field observations, to improve learning outcomes.
• Strong project and program management skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and deliver high-quality work on time.
• Strong leadership and execution skills, with a clear bias toward action and results.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Job Location

Kabwe, Zambia

Benefits

Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits

Eligibility

This role is only open to citizens or permanent residents of Zambia.

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here (globalhotline@oneacrefund.org), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace

Apply here: https://grnh.se/fa1i4pe21us