Global Coffee Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) Director

At TechnoServe, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to build a better life. For over 50 years, we have given smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs the skills, connections, and confidence to lift themselves out of poverty. We leverage the power of markets and the private sector to create sustainable economic growth to benefit people and the planet. Our unique mix of business solutions, deep knowledge of local contexts, and data-driven insights is helping to fight poverty across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

TechnoServe staff are local–95% are from the countries in which they work. We put a high premium on collaboration and entrepreneurship. We hold ourselves and each other to the highest standards of integrity and transparency. And we focus on delivering lasting impact for our mission.

Job Summary:

Collaborating closely with Coffee Division leaders, the Global Coffee Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Director provides strategic leadership and technical excellence across the MEL function for TechnoServe’s Coffee Division. The role ensures that robust systems, standards and processes are in place to effectively monitor and measure impact across all coffee programs globally.

The Global Coffee MEL Director supports innovation in monitoring and evaluation of specific interventions, providing strategic and technical oversight for our coffee portfolio of large-scale programs across Africa and Latin America. As part of the Global Coffee Division, The MEL Director reports to the Global Coffee Sustainability Director, with dotted line reporting to the Global Impact Director, and collaborates with the Global Impact Team to ensure insights from MEL feed into organizational learning. The Global Coffee MEL Director manages a mid-size team, and works closely with regional and global stakeholders to harmonize tools and advance learning.

The Global Coffee MEL Director position combines strong technical MEL expertise with leadership responsibilities. Success in the role requires strong communication and relationship management skills, the ability to coordinate across time zones and cultures and strategic thinking to translate evidence into actionable insights for decision-making.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities:

Provide MEL leadership within the coffee practice: (40% LOE):

• Work closely with the global Impact team to develop detailed indicator guidance that are in line with TechnoServe standards and allows for seamless internal and external reporting.
• Advance MEL best practices, in line with TechnoServe's global standards, and ensure successful adoption across the coffee portfolio. This includes analysis guidelines, database standards, monitoring dashboards, and data collection tools.
• Ensure data quality practices such as data verification, back checking, and other data quality routines are thoroughly integrated into all projects.
• Facilitate the analysis and dissemination of findings for Coffee Practice and play a leading role in developing a practice area learning agenda.
• Support coffee teams in Africa and Latin America to strengthen MEL Systems, processes and resources promoting standardization of tools and efficient technology use.
• Oversee the planning and coordination of MEL activities, document management, and tracking of MEL deliverables across regions.
• Lead or oversee the recruitment and capacity development of country-level MEL staff within the Coffee Division.
• Supervise and guide regional MEL managers in Africa and Latin America, ensuring consistent design, maintenance, and improvement of monitoring systems
• Lead Corporate Measurement annual impact reporting from the Africa and Latin America coffee programs and present the results to the global impact team for review.
  
  

Manage the Coffee Division Digital Monitoring Systems – PIMA and LAC Coffee System (30% LOE):

• Lead the strategic development and oversight of digital monitoring systems across regions, including PIMA (Africa) and the LAC Coffee System (Latin America), ensuring alignment with the global Coffee Division objectives.
• Define and implement strategies to enhance system functionality.
• Lead or oversee the design, testing, and roll-out of new system features to improve the tracking of field team performance and the effectiveness of program interventions. Support program teams in adopting and using technologies (training, monitor usage etc.)
• Develop and maintain annual plans aligned with Coffee Division goals and objectives.

Provide direct MEL technical assistance to coffee projects globally (20% LOE):

• Lead the design, management, analysis, reportin