Chief Impact and Sustainability Officer (CISO)

Job Description – Chief Impact and Sustainability Officer (CISO)

At GrainPro, we are a profitable, high-growth, mission-driven global company - eagerly searching for a new member of our leadership team: our first Chief Impact & Sustainability Officer. This role is pivotal to GrainPro’s 2022 strategy and will play a prominent role in shaping GrainPro’s future.

Our Company:

At GrainPro, we are passionate about making a difference in the lives of smallholder farmers and their families through our products.  GrainPro manufactures post-harvest management systems suitable for organic, chemical-free storage, solar-drying, and transporting of dry agricultural commodities worldwide. GrainPro’s patented air-tight technology ensures that valuable commodities are handled in a moisture-protected, insect-free, and mold-free environment and can maintain quality, taste and nutritional value of dried food for years. The company is committed to sustainable growth through environmental stewardship and social impact. Our vision is a healthy planet without hunger or poverty.

The Role:

As the Chief Impact and Sustainability Officer you will lead both impact and sustainability initiatives across the company, including our four regional divisions (Africa, Asia, Latin America, US/EU) and our operations in the Philippines. You’ll pave the way for us to achieve our ambitious impact and sustainability goals: reducing hunger for 500 million smallholder farmers and eliminating single use plastics in our products.  

On the sustainability side, you’ll lead our efforts to move away from single use plastics in our products. This will take time – so in the short term, you’ll explore reuse and recycle strategies for our products. You will knit together the different local sustainability experiments happening across the company into a pathway towards reducing our use of virgin plastics. You’ll work with external partners seamlessly and you’ll keep your finger on the pulse of the alternative materials space globally, in search of innovations for GrainPro.

On the impact side, you’ll use our current frameworks to gather the data we need to measure the social impact we have on small farmers and the environmental impact our products have by lowering pesticide use. You’ll also measure and report on the company’s carbon footprint. You’ll be creative and tenacious in supporting our teams to gather data – and you’ll trouble-shoot when you hit roadblocks. You’ll find engaging ways to communicate this data and the story it tells about GrainPro to our investors, key stakeholders, and our employees. You’ll always be looking for ways to deepen our impact and improve our impact frameworks and processes.

To do all of this, you will create partnerships across the organization, e.g., with marketing, with the division managers and their teams, with operations, with finance – to implement and measure key impact and sustainability measures. You will influence, engage others, and lead. As a member of the senior management team and reporting to the CEO, we will be looking to you to contribute to the overall leadership of the company through your positive attitude, your new ideas, your strategic thinking, and your ability to execute.

Your Location: Washington D.C. preferred, otherwise East Coast USA. You are flexible to take evening or early morning phone calls to connect with our global team.

Travel: International travel approximately once a quarter may be required.

 Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree required and ideally a Master’s Degree in a related field, e.g., international development, monitoring & evaluation.
• 10 years of work experience in sustainability as well as hands-on experience working in the international development agricultural sector with smallholder farmers is required.
• Deep understanding of impact measurement approaches and methodologies. Has defined and measured impact in a highly complex environment, ideally in the agriculture sector or a similar one.
• Experience living and working internationally, ideally in both developing and developed countries
• Experience and expertise with plastics, packaging, recycling processes and/or alternative materials to plastics is a plus
• Fluent in English speech, writing, and reading. Proficiency in other languages is a plus

  Key skills & attributes:

• Embraces a “Servant Leadership” approach in all interactions with colleagues
• Analytical and data-driven: enjoys building frameworks, collecting data and distilling insights – and can build and articulate a compelling story and/or vision backed by data
• Communication & influence: has excellent communication skills (verbal and written) and is able to influence other colleagues without having direct authority
• Global mindset: Has a love for working cross-culturally with diverse teams. Can find common ground and harmonize perspectives, while respecting differences
• Strong planning and organizational skills: strong ability to plan ahead and meet deadlines, even in complicated projects. Ability to juggle multiple competing priorities in a changing environment
• Continuous improvement: you are always looking for big or small ways to get better
• Humility: willingness to do whatever it takes and belief that no job is too big or too small
• Positivity: a “glass-is-half-full" team player with a collaborative attitude who sees possibility and opportunity wherever you go
• Comfortable working remotely, I.e., most colleagues are not in your physical office

STATEMENT OF NON-DISCRIMINATION: GrainPro is committed to the ideal of diversity in its staff. GrainPro does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, or ethnicity. We are strongly committed to hiring a diverse and multicultural staff.

ethnicity. We are strongly committed to hiring a diverse and multicultural staff.