- Role: Marketing Manager
- Venture: Mountain Harvest
- Location: Mbale, Uganda
About Mountain Harvest
Mountain Harvest is a young, innovative coffee production company that works to raise the quality of life for smallholder Arabica coffee farmers on Mt Elgon in eastern Uganda, by increasing incomes, helping build farm and household assets and enhancing farmer resilience to shocks on a commercially and environmentally sustainable basis.
Mountain Harvest believes such change can only be achieved by unlocking and monetizing unrealized potential of the farmers coffee and farms. Our approach involves three major interventions:
- Elevating quality into the premium segment of the specialty coffee market,
- Disconnecting pricing from the commodity and Fair Trade markets through a relationship-based trade with roaster-retailers that pay substantially higher prices for quality and impact (social and environmental)
- Using the additional margin generated from higher prices to invest at the farm level through an intense, service-oriented engagement with farmers.
As Marketing Manager, you will work with the Mountain Harvest team in Uganda, and the Ground Up Investing team in the US to develop a global, luxury marketing and branding strategy to elevate the high quality but under-appreciated coffee from Mt Elgon into the premium segment of the specialty coffee market worldwide.
About You
Mountain Harvest works to open new possibilities for coffee farmers on Mount Elgon by raising the quality and value of their coffee using ecological, climate-smart methods and improved processing. Our goal is to increase our average price by roughly 2 times, which we believe is achievable based on recent successes by entrepreneur led start-ups in Burundi and Colombia. The additional margin generated will in turn enable the investment in productivity and quality at the farm level that is necessary to enable realistic pathways out of poverty for our farmers and support the company’s growth so that it can ultimately deliver such life changing value to a larger number of farmers.
We are looking for an experienced marketing and branding professional to collaborate with the Mountain Harvest team to develop a global marketing and branding strategy that will enable the company to move our coffee into a more exclusive segment of the specialty coffee market.
Responsibilities
As Marketing Manager for Mountain Harvest, your responsibilities will include:
- Review existing brand and marketing strategy and operations
- Learn how coffee is produced and marketed from farm to cup
- Design and develop a branding and marketing strategy that will enable Mountain Harvest to establish trading relationships with roaster retailers willing to pay higher prices for micro-lots of coffee.
- Building brand awareness and positioning.
- Directing, planning and coordinating marketing efforts.
- Handling social media and content marketing.
- Manage and mentor junior staff on assignments
- Other related duties assigned
Sound exciting? Here’s who we are looking for:
Skills & Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communication, business, or similar field.
- A minimum of 3-5 years’ relevant work experience.
- Excellent communication skills.
- Ability to think creatively and innovatively.
- Analytical skills to forecast and identify trends and challenges.
- Experience with social media and content marketing.
- Able to build strong, lasting relationships with key stakeholders.
- Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills.
- Experience in project coordination.
- Ability to work in a fast paced, team-based environment.
- Proven ability to multi-task, appropriately prioritize workflow and complete tasks.
- Committed team player with strong organizational skills.
