Nigeria Country Director — Digital Green

Type: Full-time
Posted: 1 month ago
Closes: Nov 13, 2026

Job Description

Digital Green is seeking a Nigeria Country Director to lead its long-term growth and operations in Nigeria.

The role focuses on scaling FarmerChat, an AI-enabled agricultural advisory platform, across one of Digital Green's most important markets. It suits a senior leader with deep Nigerian agriculture knowledge, strong stakeholder networks and experience managing strategy, partnerships, fundraising and teams.

About the Role

The Country Director will shape Digital Green's Nigerian strategy and represent the organization with government, donors, agribusinesses and technology partners. The position combines external leadership with responsibility for program delivery, product adaptation, fundraising and team development.

The role reports directly to the CEO. It is designed as a long-term country leadership position rather than a short-term setup or consulting assignment. The successful candidate will also help ensure that FarmerChat reflects the realities of Nigerian farmers and local operating conditions.

Key Responsibilities

The role spans five major areas:

Build strategic relationships across government, donors, agriculture and technology.
Lead FarmerChat's Nigerian strategy, delivery and farmer-level impact.
Guide product localization, user research, agronomic content and language adaptation.
Identify funding opportunities and lead donor engagement and proposals.
Recruit and develop a lean, high-performing Nigerian team.
Oversee regulatory, compliance, budgeting and operational requirements.
Bring Nigerian market insights into global product and program decisions.

The indicative workload is weighted toward partnerships and ecosystem development, followed by product and program adaptation, fundraising, team leadership and country operations.

Who This Job Is For

This position is aimed at an established country or regional leader with substantial experience in international development, agriculture or technology-for-development. Strong relationships with Nigerian government, donors, agribusinesses and development organizations are important.

The strongest candidates will understand both Nigerian smallholder agriculture and technology-enabled development. They should also be comfortable discussing digital products, data and AI with technical teams.

Candidates with experience managing large program portfolios, building lean teams and developing multi-year partnerships will be particularly relevant.

Requirements

Essential

12+ years of experience in international development, agriculture or technology-for-development.
At least five years in country or regional leadership.
Experience with accountability for strategy, delivery and growth.
Strong current networks across Nigerian government, donors, agribusiness and development partners.
Track record of building and leading high-performing teams.
Fundraising experience and experience managing multi-million-dollar program portfolios.
Experience with technology-enabled agriculture, ICT4D, digital advisory or data-driven farmer engagement.
Ability to work effectively with product and technical teams.
Comfort discussing product, data and AI decisions.
Deep knowledge of Nigerian agriculture and rural livelihoods.
Strong strategic and operational capabilities.
Ability to work independently in a globally distributed organization.
Cultural fluency across Nigeria's regional and linguistic contexts.

Preferred

Experience establishing or operating a country office.
Multi-state or Northern Nigeria experience.
Working knowledge of Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo or West African Pidgin.
Experience with multilingual or voice-based digital tools.
Advanced degree or equivalent experience.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary: Competitive salary and benefits package.

The vacancy does not provide a specific salary range or detailed breakdown of benefits. Candidates should confirm the applicable compensation package during the recruitment process.

Location and Work Arrangement

Location: Abuja, Nigeria
Work arrangement: Not specifically stated in the vacancy.

The role operates within a globally distributed organization and requires significant engagement with Nigerian stakeholders. Candidates should confirm the expected office, travel and remote-working arrangements during recruitment.

Why This Opportunity May Be Worth Considering

The position offers an opportunity to shape Digital Green's presence in Nigeria at a significant stage of FarmerChat's development. The organization aims to reach millions of Nigerian farmers through AI-enabled agricultural advisory.

The role also sits at the intersection of government systems, agriculture, technology and AI. It offers substantial influence over country strategy, partnerships, product adaptation and team development.

What to Check Before Applying

This is a senior leadership position, so applicants should assess their experience against the 12-year overall requirement and five-year country or regional leadership expectation.

Pay particular attention to your Nigerian stakeholder network, fundraising record, portfolio-management experience and understanding of smallholder agriculture. Experience connecting technology with agricultural development will also be important.

Candidates should also consider whether they can operate effectively across Nigeria's different regional and linguistic contexts.

How to Apply

Digital Green's exclusive recruitment partner for this position is Shortlist.

Applications should be submitted through the recruitment platform specified for the vacancy. Applications are considered on a rolling basis until the position closes, so early applications are encouraged.

About the Employer

Digital Green is a global non-profit focused on improving livelihoods for smallholder farmers. Its work combines agricultural extension expertise with digital technology and AI.

Its flagship FarmerChat platform provides multilingual agricultural advice covering areas such as climate resilience, pest management, agricultural inputs and market access. The platform currently operates across India, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Brazil.

AscendurePro Application Notes

Before you apply:

Position yourself as a country-level strategic leader.
Quantify the size of programs or portfolios you have managed.
Highlight Nigerian government and development-sector relationships.
Show evidence of successful fundraising and partnership development.
Demonstrate experience building and leading lean teams.
Highlight agricultural or rural-development expertise.
Explain how you have worked with technology or product teams.
Include examples of using technology to improve development outcomes.
Mention relevant Nigerian regional or language experience.
Demonstrate your ability to operate with significant autonomy.

CV focus: Lead with country leadership, strategy, partnerships, fundraising and measurable program results. For this role, your ability to connect Nigerian market realities with technology and organizational strategy should be immediately clear.

Related searches: More jobs in Abuja · More ops & hr jobs · More full-time jobs

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Likely Interview Questions

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LIKELY QUESTIONS

- How would you develop a three-year strategy to scale FarmerChat in Nigeria while ensuring meaningful farmer adoption and measurable livelihood impact?
- Which government institutions, donors, agribusinesses, telecoms, extension actors, and technology partners would you prioritize in your first 12 months, and why?
- How would you adapt an AI-enabled agricultural advisory product for Nigeria's diverse farming systems, languages, literacy levels, and regional contexts?
- What is your approach to validating that FarmerChat advice is agronomically accurate, locally relevant, safe, and trusted by smallholder farmers?
- Describe your experience raising multi-year funding for agriculture, digital development, or technology-enabled programs. How would you build Digital Green's Nigeria funding pipeline?
- How would you balance donor requirements, government priorities, farmer needs, and global product-roadmap constraints when they conflict?
- What metrics would you use to assess FarmerChat performance beyond registrations, including engagement, behavior change, inclusion, agricultural outcomes, and cost-effectiveness?
- As a Country Director reporting to a globally distributed leadership team, how would you build a lean Nigerian team, maintain strong controls, and ensure clear communication with headquarters?

BEHAVIOURAL QUESTIONS

- Tell us about a time you built a high-value partnership with a government agency, donor, or private-sector organization in a complex environment.
Model approach: Situation: Briefly describe the strategic objective and stakeholder landscape. Task: Explain the partnership outcome you needed to secure. Action: Show how you mapped interests, built trust, managed decision-makers, aligned incentives, and converted discussions into commitments. Result: Quantify funding, reach, policy influence, delivery results, or partnership longevity.

- Describe a time you led a program or organization through a major strategic change.
Model approach: Situation: Explain the initial model, challenge, or external shift. Task: State your responsibility for redefining strategy and maintaining delivery. Action: Describe how you used data, consulted staff and partners, made trade-offs, communicated the change, and managed implementation risks. Result: Share measurable improvements in impact, efficiency, funding, adoption, or team performance.

- Tell us about a time a digital product or technology-enabled intervention did not perform as expected with end users.
Model approach: Situation: Set out the target users, product, and intended outcome. Task: Explain the adoption, usability, trust, or operational problem. Action: Describe your user research, segmentation, product feedback process, localization decisions, and collaboration with technical teams. Result: Quantify changes in usage, retention, satisfaction, reach, cost, or program outcomes, and state the lesson applied.

- Give an example of how you built and developed a high-performing team across different locations or cultures.
Model approach: Situation: Describe the team context, capability gaps, and performance challenge. Task: Clarify your leadership mandate and desired operating model. Action: Explain recruitment choices, goal-setting, coaching, decision rights, inclusion practices, performance management, and ways of building accountability. Result: Demonstrate improvements in retention, delivery quality, team engagement, speed, or organizational capacity.

SMART QUESTIONS TO ASK

- What are the most important milestones Digital Green expects the Nigeria Country Director to achieve in the first 6, 12, and 24 months?
- What evidence does Digital Green currently have on FarmerChat's adoption, repeat use, trust, and agricultural outcomes among Nigerian farmers?
- Which partnerships in Nigeria are already active, and where does the organization see the largest gaps across government, funding, content, distribution, and technology?
- How are decisions made between the Nigeria team and global product, research, and program teams when local user needs require product-roadmap changes?
- What level of authority will the Country Director have over strategy, budget, hiring, partnership agreements, fundraising priorities, and country-level operational decisions?

RED FLAGS TO WATCH FOR

- Unclear success measures: Listen for broad ambitions to reach millions of farmers without a credible plan for distribution, sustained usage, impact measurement, content quality, or financial sustainability.
- Limited country autonomy: Watch for vague answers about decision rights, budget control, product localization authority, or the ability to hire the team needed to deliver results.
- Misalignment between ambition and resources: Probe if the organization expects major fundraising, government engagement, product adaptation, compliance management, and nationwide scale from an under-resourced local team.

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Adjacent Career Paths

Roles you'd also qualify for based on this posting's requirements:

Nigeria Country Director, Agricultural Development — The candidate's agriculture leadership, donor networks, program oversight, and country operations experience transfer directly.
Regional Director, West Africa ICT4D — The role closely matches experience scaling digital products, partnerships, and development programs across complex markets.
Director of Partnerships, Digital Agriculture — Strong government, donor, agribusiness, and technology relationships support strategic partnership and funding leadership.
Nigeria Program Director, Smallholder Agriculture — The candidate can lead multi-million-dollar farmer programs, localized advisory delivery, teams, and impact strategy.