Business & Marketing Specialist III – CNCG, TREES
Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization that works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. Based in New York City, with offices throughout the United States and worldwide, the Rainforest Alliance works with people whose livelihoods depend on the land, helping them transform the way they grow food, harvest wood and host travelers.
Climate, Nature and Communities in Guatemala (CNCG) will assist in the development of a process to mitigate the impacts of climate change in Guatemala -- improving management of natural resources and conservation of biodiversity, building institutional and technical capacity, and strengthening the policy and legal framework necessary for the country to respond to climate change. The project will strengthen the capacity of local organizations to address biodiversity, forest conservation and sustainable land management and address issues related to food security, adaptation, environmental certification, income-generating opportunities, and low emissions development strategies.
The Rainforest Alliance’s TREES (Training, Extension, Enterprises and Sourcing) promotes sustainable livelihoods and protects biodiversity in forest-dependent communities. We work to enhance the competitiveness of community and indigenous forestry enterprises by building business skills, increasing efficiencies, and facilitating investment in value-added processing, expanding income opportunities from wood and non-wood forest products and environmental services, and increasing access to local and global markets through Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification.
The Business & Marketing Specialist III will be responsible for implementing the TREES Regional Markets Strategy (2011-2015) in Guatemala and supporting project key activities. S/he will lead and operate the Markets Information Unit and its functions described in the Regional Markets Strategy which includes the following strategic actions:
- Demand Information;
- Supply Organization;
- Customer Guide and
- Sales Improvement.
These are to strengthen market participation for environmental services, forest timber and non-timber products from Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and/or Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) from the Petén, Verapaces and Western Highlands regions.
- Create commercial alliances for timber products, non-timber products and environmental services for the region;
- Develop a market and business intelligence toolkit to analyze forest timber and non-timber products and environmental services demand, supply assortment and analyze development of new forest products and environmental services;
- Support to objectives in validation of timber, non-timber products and environmental services structure cost to enhance a forest sector competitiveness benchmarking;
- Support the Sustainable Forest Supply Assortment Organizations providing a market information mechanism and conducting innovative collective, inclusive and cooperative supply models;
- Develop of a Customer Guide to promote forest products and services (certificated and/or in process of certification);
- Create a Sales Monitoring Toolkit and train CBOs/SMEs to enhance commercial actions and report on their forest sales improvement;
- Train and provide technical assistance to the staff from SMEs supported by TREES by identifying certified buyers, promotion, sales and marketing;
- Identify new commercial opportunities and facilitate commercial agreements with new certified buyers;
- Present all required reports (weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual); and
- Other duties as assigned.
Supervisory Responsibilities:
Manages 1 employee. Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization’s policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance; rewarding and disciplining employees; addressing complaints and resolving problems.
- Economics, Business Administration, Business Marketing or Commerce, Industrial Engineering or related fields as Forestry Economics or Forestry Business and Commerce university degrees; a Master’s degree in a related field preferred;
- 7-10 years minimum proven experience in the following areas: market development, marketing and commercialization of forestry or related products or related medium and small enterprises;
- Demonstrated experience in product commercialization and sales;
- Strong language skills (reading, writing and verbal) in Spanish and English;
- Ability to adapt to multi-cultural situations;
- Strong computer skills (MS-Office); and
- Willingness and availability to travel at least 50% of time.
Commensurate with experience.
Only candidates authorized to work in Guatemala will be considered.
Send resume, cover letter and salary history to Human Resources, Rainforest Alliance, 8 Avenida 15-62, zona 10, Ciudad Guatemala, Guatemala 01010. Fax: (502) 2383-5777; E-mail: guatemalapersonnel@ra.org. If emailing, use the following format in the subject line: first name and last name, job title of position you are applying for.
The Rainforest Alliance is an equal opportunity employer.