Tanzania Commercial and Market Access Lead

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.

Our Tanzania program, founded in 2013, supports more than 100,000 farmers with quality farm supplies, as well as fruit trees. Our team in Tanzania is headquartered in Iringa and supported by three smaller offices Mbeya and Njombe in the southern highlands, and Moshi in the north where the team is focused on expanding our services to new clients. One Acre Fund works in select areas in the Iringa and Mbeya regions, with a growing presence in the country’s north.

About the Role

Are you a strategic commercial leader with a passion for building market systems that work for smallholder farmers?

This is a senior role at the heart of OAF Tanzania's commercial ambition. Reporting directly to the Country Director, you will define and lead the organization's market access strategy and portfolio—deciding which value chains to prioritize, shaping the commercial model for each, and building the partnerships needed to make them viable. Initial priority value chains include cashew and avocado.

In practice, this role is roughly two-thirds commercial and analytical design, and one-third strategic leadership. You will own business cases, margin analysis, and commercial negotiations directly, while driving farmer-facing field delivery indirectly through a established layer of specialists, coordinators, and supervisors.

If you are ready to build commercially viable value chains that transform smallholder farmer incomes at scale, we would love to hear from you.

Responsibilities

Market Access Portfolio Strategy & Prioritization

• Strategic Roadmap: Define the multi-year strategy across priority value chains (e.g., cashew and avocado) with clear sequencing and resourcing.
• Opportunity Assessment: Evaluate and recommend whether to invest, partner, pilot, or scale specific value chains based on commercial viability and farmer impact.
• Portfolio Allocation: Provide strong, data-driven recommendations to country leadership on how to allocate the department's time, people, and capital.

Value Chain Development

• Commercial Model Design: Develop commercially sound models for aggregation, processing, value addition, and export, determining the best delivery approach (direct vs. partner-led) for each context.
• Deal Structuring & Negotiation: Lead the identification, diligence, negotiation, and contract structuring with strategic commercial partners, processors, and offtakers—owning pricing logic, margin targets, and service level expectations
• Field Delivery Oversight: Set performance targets (produce quality, aggregation volume, offtake execution) and hold the specialist, coordinator, and supervisor layer accountable for field results without running daily field operations personally

Performance, Analysis & Risk Management

• Business Case Ownership: Build and defend unit economics, margin models, business cases, and growth plans across active value chains.
• Data-Backed Governance: Establish tracking systems for adoption, supply, sales, and partner performance, using live data and financial analysis from pilots to make firm recommendations to scale, redesign, pause, or exit workstreams.
• Risk Mitigation: Identify operational, commercial, and regulatory risks early to implement sensible mitigation strategies.

Leadership: Team, Cross-Functional & Representation

• Multi-Layer Team Leadership: Lead and coach a growing team—currently a specialist, coordinator, and supervisor layer covering field delivery, plus future commercial hires—ensuring strong operational cadence and team autonomy.
• Cross-Functional Execution: Partner closely with Supply Chain, Finance, Procurement, Legal, MEL, and Government Relations for seamless end-to-end commercial execution.
• External Representation: Represent OAF Tanzania externally with buyers, processors, SMEs, government stakeholders, donors, and strategic industry partners.

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:

• You have a Bachelor's or Master's degree in business, economics, agribusiness, agriculture, supply chain, or a related field.
• 5+ years in a commercially oriented leadership role. Relevant backgrounds may include agribusiness, procurement or strategic sourcing, commercial strategy, business development, supply chain, commodity trading, market access or value-chain development.
• You have strong commercial instincts and numerical fluency . You can build or interrogate financial models, read margins and costs, and make sound decisions from data.
• You have the ability to operate at multiple levels. Equally comfortable setting a multi-year strategy, managing a team, and getting into operational detail when needed.
• You have a practical understanding of how value chains work from farmer aggregation and quality compliance through to processing, buyers, and export dynamics
• You have experience negotiating and managing external partners. I.e., processors, exporters, buyers, or service providers — and holding them accountable to agreed terms and performance.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Job Location

Tanzania

Benefits

Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits

Contract Duration

2 Years

Eligibility

One Acre Fund can support a work permit for this role. However, nationals of (or those with an extensive professional background and work history in) our countries of operation are preferred.

Application Deadline

05 August 2026. Please note that we hire on a rolling basis which means that applications are reviewed and processed on a continuous basis until a hire is made.

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 ([email protected]), 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.