Job Role: Chief People & Culture

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

AGRA and its Work to Transform Agriculture

AGRA is an African-led institution that actively supports the drive towards inclusive agricultural transformation and sustainable food systems. We do this by empowering the continent’s 33 million smallholder farming households to transform their agriculture from a struggle to survive to profitable businesses. The continent’s farmers regularly face challenges, and we aspire to provide uniquely African solutions that respond to their agricultural and environmental challenges, leading to increased harvests for reduced hunger and more income.

Working in alignment with the development priorities of our focus countries, we enable farmers to access improved and high-yielding seeds, gain knowledge on sustainable farming, and linkages to profitable markets.

In our work, we aspire to build the alliances, partnerships, and networks required to drive an inclusive agricultural transformation. We work with our partners to create an equitable youth-friendly environment that harnesses the youth dividend on the continent to drive growth and facilitate open employment opportunities for young women and men. We achieve our key objectives through a focus on the following four areas of intervention:

1. Policy and state capability – We support governments in creating an enabling environment for private sector involvement in agricultural transformation.
2. Seed systems – We trigger higher productivity by increasing the availability and access to improved seeds by farmers allowing them to increase their harvests for food security and better incomes.
3. Sustainable farming – We support farmers in building resilient farming systems for sustained high yields through interventions such as mechanization and irrigation.
4. Inclusive markets and trade – We work to increase the linkages between farmers, and other market actors for a positive, sustained cycle of commercialization and reinvestment.

Why Join Us?

People are the heartbeat of our organization and remain the true drivers of our delivery, impact, and success.

We have cultivated a workplace that fuels Depth in Collaboration, Excellence in Execution, Constructive Engagements, and a spirit of being Increasingly Entrepreneurial; all underpinned by our cherished I-RISE Values (Integrity, Respect, Innovation, Stewardship and Equity)

We work with incredible people and partners who have roots in farming communities across the African continent combined with an inclusive, diverse, and talented workforce from over 25 nationalities. Our commitment to a call to action goes beyond ourselves as we arise to catalyze African Food Systems transformation and improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

We are looking for people who are passionate about being part of a mission-driven team that is making a real difference on the continent.

Are you ready to embark on this exciting transformative journey with us?

The Position

The Chief of People & Culture serves as a thought partner to the President and Executive Committee in catalysing a transformation of AGRA’s culture, capabilities, and people systems. This leader will align AGRA’s organisational design with its purpose and strategy, ensure accountability across the people function, shift AGRA’s culture to its future-forward vision and build internal strength through values-driven leadership.

This role goes far beyond traditional Human Resources. It is about reimagining how people, culture, and systems converge to enable bold action, inclusivity, and innovation across Africa’s agricultural development landscape.

This leadership opportunity is for an individual with deep integrity, cross-cultural intelligence, and a passion for designing human systems that shape the future. The role is not just about embedding AGRA’s values—it is about living them out loud, mobilising people around a shared purpose, and ensuring the organisation’s operating model and mindset evolve in step with its strategic ambitions.

Key Responsibilities of the role include:

1. Strategic Alignment and Transformation

• Be a strategic business partner to AGRA’s President and programme leadership to enable delivery of the organisation’s vision and goals.
• Translate AGRA’s ambitions into a clear people strategy with defined cultural and organisational outcomes.
• Lead the people side of AGRA’s transformation, including overall organisational structure, decentralisation and top team effectiveness.
• Support the implementation of the redesigned leadership structure.
• Redesign organisational structures and decision-making norms to reflect agility, accountability, and inclusivity.
• Serve as a catalyst for transformation across AGRA’s leadership, helping build a culture of trust, empowerment, and co-creation.

2. Leadership and Culture

• Implement and embed AGRA’s organisation-wide culture strategy.
• Develop and implement a culture metrics framework and embed desired behaviours.
• Coach and empower senior leaders to model AGRA’s values in ways that are both visible and impactful.
• Design leadership development programmes that anchor a growth mindset and collaborative ethos.
• Be a steward of culture and psychological safety across the organisation and the ecosystem that AGRA is building in Africa.

3. Talent and Systems

• Build strong internal pipelines for leadership and technical roles through robust talent mapping and succession planning.
• Shape a forward-looking view of the external talent market and design bold, effective solutions for pipeline development
• Lead equitable and high-impact performance management, reward and recognition, and career development systems that balance empowerment with accountability
• Strengthen AGRA’s employer brand in alignment with its purpose and people proposition, across markets.

4. People Experience and Engagement

• Champion employee experience across the lifecycle—onboarding, development, feedback, and growth.
• Oversee systems and rituals that support well-being, agility, and inclusion.
• Develop and track people-related KPIs that reflect both engagement and impact.

5. Compliance and Governance

• Ensure adherence to local and international employment law and lead on ethical standards.
• Launch a comprehensive compensation and benefits review.
• Maintain oversight of HR compliance and policy frameworks.
• Lead digital transformation of HR operations.

The Ideal Leader

AGRA is looking for a values-driven, emotionally intelligent leader with the courage to challenge the status quo and the wisdom to build with care. This individual must bring both credibility and imagination to the role—balancing strategy, values and systems thinking with deep empathy and cultural awareness.

This leader will:

• Demonstrate Courageous Integrity, speaking truth to power and guiding executive decisions with principle and care.
• Be a Systems Thinker, able to connect dots across strategy, operations, people and culture, and design coherent structures for impact.
• Influence Across Levels, building trust with board members, senior executives, and staff, while inspiring belief and momentum.
• Demonstrate comfort with Ambiguity, operating with humility and agility in fast-changing environments, and fostering a culture of learning across AGRA.

Their leadership will not be about control—it will be about connection. They will inspire teams not only to perform, but to believe in AGRA’s purpose and feel at home in its evolving culture and mandate. This is a rare opportunity to build an organisation where people thrive because they are seen, valued, and invited to shape the future.

Key Requirements of the role include:

• Experience in strategic HR leadership roles, including transformation mandates in multi-stakeholder or international organisations.
• Proven experience designing and implementing culture change, talent strategies, and organisational development initiatives.
• Experience directly partnering with CEOs / Presidents.
• Deep familiarity with African labour markets, regional dynamics, and development sector practices.
• Master’s degree in HR, Organisational Psychology, Business Administration or related fields. SHRM-SCP/SPHR certifications are a plus.

How to apply for this role?

AGRA is a crucible for diversity and an equal opportunity harbinger. We welcome the torchbearers of change for this role. All expressions of interest will be enveloped in confidentiality. Interested executives are requested to send in a cover letter and their updated resume/CV via email to AGRA.Leadership@EquityPurpose.com by deadline 18^th July 2025.

For more information on the AGRA, visit www.agra.org.

AGRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer