Lead, Marketplace Development

Job Description

The Lead, Market Development is responsible for expanding, commercializing, and scaling AgTech solutions across priority agricultural value chains. The role focuses on market development, partnership building, and farmer adoption of digital agriculture, agri-financing, and market linkage platforms.

The position plays a critical role in translating AgTech products into viable market solutions by strengthening off-taker and supplier networks, supporting contract farming models, and enabling farmer-centric service bundling across inputs, finance, advisory, and market access.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Identify and prioritize high-potential agricultural value chains and commodities.
• Design and execute market entry and scale-up strategies for AgTech solutions.
• Conduct market assessments, ecosystem mapping, and farmer segmentation.
• Develop farmer aggregation and supply network models.
• Identify geographic expansion opportunities aligned with national and regional priorities.

Partnership and Ecosystem Development

•  Build and manage partnerships with:
• Off-takers and agro-processors
• Input suppliers and agro-dealers
• Financial institutions and MFIs
• Government agriculture offices
• Development partners and NGOs
• Negotiate commercial agreements and collaboration framework
• Strengthen private-sector participation in contract farming and structured markets.

Commercialization of AgTech Solutions

•  Drive adoption and scale-up of:
• eVoucher and digital input distribution systems
• Digital farmer platforms
• Agricultural and value-chain financing products
• Market linkage and contract farming platforms
• Advisory, climate, and agronomic intelligence tools
• Develop go-to-market strategies for farmers and value chain actors
• Design bundled service offerings combining inputs, finance, advisory, and market access.

Business Growth and Revenue Development

•  Build and manage commercial pipelines for AgTech solutions.
•  Lead commercial negotiations with ecosystem partners.
• Identify new revenue streams and monetization opportunities.
• Support pricing strategy development and cost-recovery models.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Product and Technology teams on solution design and iteration.
• Coordinate with Agri-Finance teams on product structuring and rollout.
• Engage Data and Analytics units to inform targeting, performance tracking, and optimization.
• Align with Field Operations teams to ensure execution quality and farmer engagement.

Market Intelligence and Strategy Support

• Monitor AgTech, agriculture, and financing market trends.
• Track competitor activity and emerging ecosystem models.
• Provide structured insights to inform product roadmaps and expansion strategies.
•  Support AgTech strategic planning and business case development.

Key Outputs

• Expanded AgTech services across priority agricultural value chains.
• Increased farmer onboarding, activity, and ecosystem participation.
• Signed and operational commercial partnerships across the value chain.
• Increased transaction volumes and sustainable revenue growth.
• Strengthened supply reliability and execution quality for contract farming programs.

Requirments

• Bachelor’s degree in agriculture, Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics, Business Administration, Development Studies, or related fields. Master’s degree is an advantage.
• 8 to 12 years of experience in agricultural value chain development, agribusiness market development, AgTech, or agricultural financing.
• Hands-on experience with contract farming, farmer aggregation, or structured markets.
• Strong exposure to rural and smallholder farming systems.
• Experience within the Ethiopian agricultural ecosystem strongly preferred.

How To Apply

Interested candidates who meet the above requirements are invited to submit:

A cover letter outlining motivation and relevant experience

A detailed CV (maximum 3 pages)

Email your application to: hr@kifiya.com
Subject line: Lead, Marketplace Development
Application Deadline: after 10 working days

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.