Country Director, Nigeria

About the role

Digital Green is a non-profit that helps smallholder farmers through its AI-powered advisory platform FarmerChat, which now reaches farmers in India, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Brazil. Nigeria is home to about 40 million smallholder farming families, and Digital Green aims to reach 5-7 million farmers there by 2030. It is hiring a Country Director, a senior long-horizon leader who reports directly to the CEO, to set strategy, build a small but high-performing in-country team and position Digital Green with senior stakeholders. The role is long-term, not a short-term setup assignment.

Key responsibilities

• Partnerships and representation (about 35%): act as Digital Green's main representative in Nigeria with government, donors, NGOs and the private sector; build partnerships with agriculture ministries, agribusinesses, telcos and distributors; represent the organisation in policy forums and monitor the policy landscape.
• Program and product adaptation (about 25%): lead FarmerChat's in-country strategy and delivery, adapting agronomic content, local-language model behaviour, user research, field testing and language localisation (English, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, West African Pidgin).
• Business development (about 15%): identify multi-year funding opportunities, lead donor engagement and proposal development, and shape the country strategy and pipeline.
• Team-building (about 15%): recruit, develop and lead a lean Nigeria team, fostering a culture of transparency, learning and high standards within a globally distributed organisation.
• Setup, compliance and operations (about 10%): lead regulatory and compliance work such as data governance and NDPC registration, develop and manage the country budget, and coordinate with the global operations team on HR, finance and operations.

Required profile

• 12+ years in international development, agriculture or technology-for-development, including 5+ years in country or regional leadership with full accountability for strategy, delivery and growth.
• Strong networks with Nigerian government, donors, agribusiness and development partners, able to influence at senior levels.
• Track record of building and leading teams and of fundraising and managing multi-million-dollar programmes.
• Experience with technology-enabled agriculture, ICT4D, digital advisory or data-driven farmer engagement, and comfort discussing product, data and AI choices.
• Deep knowledge of Nigerian agriculture and rural livelihoods.
• Strategic, self-directed and culturally fluent across Nigeria's regions and languages.
• Strongly preferred: experience setting up a country office, multi-state or Northern Nigeria experience, and working knowledge of Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo or West African Pidgin.

Digital Green offers a competitive salary and benefits package. Applications are submitted through the exclusive recruitment partner Shortlist, on a rolling basis until the position closes.