Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Lead

The Role:
This is a foundational leadership role at the heart of the Initiative. The Foundation’s credibility, effectiveness, and ability to scale will depend on its capacity to generate trusted data, translate it into insight, and use it to steer real-world decisions. The MEL Lead will be the owner of that agenda — shaping how impact is defined, measured, and acted upon, and setting the standard for transparency, accountability, and performance across the ecosystem.

Overview:

Our Client is hiring a MEL Lead who will own and drive the Foundation’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning agenda, translating data collected across the supply chain into actionable insights for stakeholders. This is primarily a senior MEL role with a strong data orientation:

• Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL): designing and owning a rigorous MEL framework, managing the external MEL provider, and driving a strong learning and accountability culture

• Data & Vendor Oversight: ensuring that first-mile data systems (e.g. traceability and data collection platforms) deliver the data the MEL framework needs, and effectively managing the data platform vendor to meet programme requirements

The role will manage key external partners (MEL provider and data platform vendor), translate field data into strategic insights, and build and lead a high-performing internal team. It requires a strong MEL practitioner who is comfortable working with data systems and articulating data needs to vendors — without necessarily being a technical product specialist.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in MEL, data, or impact-related roles, preferably in agriculture or development contexts
• Proven experience designing and scaling MEL frameworks, including managing third-party providers
• Hands-on experience extracting and working with data from first-mile data systems and traceability platforms (e.g. SourceMap, FarmForce, NSAP or similar); ability to articulate system requirements to vendors without needing to read or debug code
• Track record of operating in complex, multi-stakeholder environments and influencing senior decision-makers
• Demonstrated ability to translate data into strategic insight and business-relevant decisions
• Familiarity with smallholder supply chains (e.g. cocoa, coffee, cotton) is a strong advantage
• Strong leadership presence, with the ability to align technical, operational, and strategic stakeholders
• Fluent in French and English, written and spoken.

Key Responsibilities:

MEL Strategy and Oversight

• Define and own a best-in-class MEL framework and learning agenda for the Foundation
• Set the standard for impact measurement, ensuring methodological rigor and credibility with external stakeholders
• Manage and challenge the external MEL provider, including contract oversight and performance management
• Translate MEL outputs into clear, decision-ready insights that influence strategy and resource allocation

Data Strategy and Governance

• Define the Foundation’s core data requirements, reporting standards, and governance model to ensure data collected by the platform vendor meets MEL needs
• Ensure full alignment between data collection, reporting, and strategic priorities
• Establish a culture of data quality, integrity, and accountability across all systems and partners

Data Platform Vendor Management

• Manage the day-to-day relationship with the data platform vendor, ensuring they deliver against the Foundation’s requirements
• Clearly communicate data and reporting needs to the vendor; track, prioritise, and follow up on system modifications, bug fixes, and new feature requests
• Leverage experience with first-mile data collection platforms (e.g.