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, reporting, and cross-regional learning of Results and Baseline assessments across coffee programs in Africa and Latin America, ensuring methodological consistency and quality standards.
• Develop and oversee Focus Group Discussion (FGD) protocols, training materials, and facilitation guides that are adaptable to diverse cultural and programmatic contexts.
• Lead or support internal evaluations or special studies across regions; E.g. seedling distribution, stumping incentives, cool farm tool, living income surveys etc., ensuring rigor, comparability and integration with broader Coffee Division learning priorities.

Support the management of impact evaluation across the Global Coffee Division (10% LOE):

• Support the selection and onboarding of impact evaluation partners, ensuring alignment with donor requirements, organizational standards, and ethical research practices.
• Contribute to the design of the impact evaluation by reviewing survey tools, training materials and data collection plans to ensure consistency with project KPIs and MEL frameworks.
• Review and provide feedback on evaluation deliverables, including regenerative practice assessments, demo plot yield surveys, and annual audit reports, ensuring technical quality and cross-regional learning from findings.
  
  

Basic Qualifications:

• A bachelor's degree in a relevant field, such as economics, public health, business administration, statistics, evaluation, data science, or other; and a minimum of 12 years of experience designing, managing and implementing multidisciplinary and results-based MEL systems in an international context
• Or a master's degree and eight years of similar experience
• Expertise in evaluating projects that are focused on agriculture
• Experience with project management systems that allow for effectively planning, tracking, and ensuring quality for complex projects.
• Background in a range of monitoring and evaluation methodologies, including both quantitative and qualitative research approaches
• Hands-on capacity-building experience, including development of training materials, as well as delivering actual training sessions.
• Fluent in STATA, R or Python programming languages

Required Languages: Fluency in English and Spanish

Travel: Travel up to 20%

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with mobile-based data collection tools (ODK, CommCare, or similar), databases (SalesForce or similar), and dashboards (Looker or similar).
• Experience managing large data sets, migrating data between platforms, performing merges, and creating automations.
• Experience with user centered design, or other design frameworks for developing technology solution.
• Experience integrating gender into project approach
• Experience delegating responsibility and thinking creatively about how to use the available resources to achieve the best results

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Proven ability to translate research findings, methodologies, and data into clear and accessible insights for colleagues with diverse technical backgrounds
• Strong commitment to developing and mentoring MEL professionals, fostering a culture of continuous learning and quality improvement across regions.
• Outstanding written and oral communication skills and a demonstrated track record of producing high-quality reports, presentations, and learning materials for global audiences.
• A demonstrated ability to effectively manage multiple projects simultaneously, including oversight of staffing, work plans, deliverables, timelines and budgets in multi-country environments.
• A demonstrated ability to coordinate and communicate effectively across cultures and time zones, engaging diplomatically with donors, partners and senior and junior team colleagues
• Strong commitment to inclusivity and equity, respecting the voices of staff at all levels, external stakeholders, and the men and women we work with.
  
  

Supervisory Responsibilities: The Senior MEL Manager will supervise a team of Regional MEL staff including the PIMA and LAC Coffee System managers.

Note: This position is based in one of the countries where TechnoServe has operations, and will follow the local office's hybrid schedule if they are located within a commutable distance. In the US, candidates must be based in an approved state. Candidates must have work authorization in the country from which they are applying. TechnoServe will not provide sponsorship for this position.

We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe's vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply.

With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability and all other protected classes.

We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks.

If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources at recruitment@tns.org or call +1 202 785 4515.