Simon Kiguru Email & Phone Number

Nairobi County, Kenya

Nairobi

Cian Prime specializes on designing and Printing flyers, posters , banners, booklets, folders and other promotional literatures for corporates. My key role is to;- Oversee fundraising, business development, and financial management - Manage project timelines and resource allocation

Nairobi County, Kenya

SokoFresh provides professional first-mile post-harvest management operations and tech-enabled market linkages, placing smallholder farmers at the center of value chain activities. SokoFresh aims to address post-harvest loss, which leads to 30-40% produce loss at the farm level, by leveraging solar-powered cold storage technology.Responsibilities:- Identifying and onboarding partners aligned with SokoFresh's mission, vision, and strategic path.- Designing partner projects, including budget planning and execution in collaboration .- Reporting to our current partners on projects progress, impact, and updates on agreed milestones.- Leading and coordinating the overall fundraising process through proposal writing, whilst utilizing input from other related Departments.- Occasionally supporting operations department on strategy, planning, recruitment, and commercial analysis.- Project designing, budgeting and developing theory of change.- Organizing and hosting field visits for donor partners across areas of our operations.Achievements:- Designed and successfully secured a €300,000 grant for the CFYE project.- Partnered with One Acre Fund to link over 500 avocado farmers to a premium export market, exporting 100+ metric tons and earning farmers a total income of Ksh. 10,000,000.- Unlocked banana ripening and market opportunities in Garissa in collaboration with the World Food Program.- Expanded operations to Tana River and Garissa Counties through the support of Concern Worldwide and WFP. 9M support in a period of 2 years.- Supported the design of a direct export strategy in collaboration with Technoserve - CASA Project - Secured € 48000 for this project.- Secured 55000 CAD support from Acumen to partner with Value for Women in developing SokoFresh gender action plan.- Secured IfDesign €2400 award for SokoFresh.- Secured € 20,000 from Shell foundation to provide cooling solutions to potato small holder farmers in Nakuru and Nyandarua counties.

Kenya

Key Responsibilities: -Providing leadership to the Full-Service team, including supporting project reporting and evaluations. - Collaborating with the product and technology team to create tools and solutions that enhance operational efficiency e.g. Twende Kazi app that makes the sourcing process simple and efficient.- Overseeing all sourcing and field operations. - Mapping of high production zones in the various hubs, looking at priority value chains, production capacity, seasonality, aggregator landscape, and pricing.- Providing guidance and support to the team, as well as identifying and resolving any operational issues.- Participating in the sales and operations planning (S&OP) activities monthly, looking to optimize unit economics while driving positive business outcomes.-Designing sourcing as a service model and supporting in execution.-Aggregated and sourced 1.8 Million kilos of produce, generating a revenue of Kes.89 Million - Linked 1707 farmers to different markets and helped them earn Kes. 77Million.

Nairobi, Kenya

My role entailed:- Operations management: I managed a team of 6 hub operators as well as managing day-to-day market linkage operations. - Trades planning: I prepared trade commercials, planned and executed trades for fresh and cereal value chains including local and cross border trades.- Budgeting: Drew trades and operational costs from S&OP, prepared annual budgets and monthly breakdowns of the same. - Recruitment: I was directly involved in identification of resource needs, attracting, assessing, and selecting qualified individuals to fill job vacancies in market linkage & operations department.I also oversaw the process of Identifying & recruiting agents, off-takers, and other actors for business operations to run smoothly- Target setting: I developed annual and monthly S&OPs for the operations team in collaboration with the Business Development team to do demand forecasting.- Expansion: Supported the team to set up operations for business concepts and pilot experiments for new regions and new value chains.- Relationships Management: Managed partners and other stakeholders projects targeting mainly Small Holder Farmers, Agents, Buyers, Government institutions and other private sector partners.Impact- Offered 8000+ small holder farmers cold storage and market linkage services that resulted to income increment by 20% in their households and reduction of food loss to below 5%.- Starting market linkage department and seeing its expansion from zero hubs to 12 hubs and crossing boarder to Uganda.- Introduced banana ripening processes using solar powered cold storages as ripening chambers. Ripened over 100 Tons of bananas in Murang'a and Garissa counties

Nairobi County, Kenya

- I was involved in building business case for market linkage operations- Tested and validated Sokofresh business model.- Developed SOPs for fresh produce sourcing.- Recruited 2000+ farmers in Murang'a, Makueni and Kiambu counties for the initial pilots.

Nakuru, Kenya,

Tulaa is a marketplace for smallholder farmers, providing them inputs, credit, agronomic advice and market linkages. The company aims to help these workers make more advantageous purchases, sales and agricultural decision-making by offering them skilled brokering, advisory services, and access to information and input financing.My role entailed;- Preparing and sharing harvest schedules for Nakuru, Narok, and Nyandarua Counties.- Prepare and share harvest budgets in time.- Recruiting, training, Managing, and deploying Harvest Coordinators and providing support to them to ensure timely and efficient harvests.- Managing logistics providers during the harvest process- Ensuring100% adherence to pre-established harvest standards, operating procedures, and schedules- Providing support by collecting, relaying, and analyzing relevant information such as prevailing farm gate prices, farm-level supply dynamics, weather conditions, and product availability- Consistently training Harvest Coordinators on issues such as quality control, price negotiations, logistics, farmer aggregation, farm visits, and sampling in collaboration with the Tulaabingwas- Collaborating across the company to ensure a seamless user experience from Market Linkage through to inputs, advisory, and credit- Systematically collecting farmer feedback – through qualitative and quantitative methods – on market linkage, farm-level results, customer satisfaction, etc.

Nakuru, Kenya

Nyandarua County

SACDEP is a development organization with a mission to facilitate and support sustainable development through sustainable agriculture for resource limited communities in Eastern Africa through practical, socio-economic, scientific linkages and partnerships in Sustainable Agriculture practices for food, nutrition, renewable energy and income security.While working at SACDEP I was able to accomplish the following;- Organized and executed dairy farmer trainings in Nyandarua county- Onboarded farmer groups in SACDEPs system.- Trained farmer groups on milk value addition - Paneer making.Impact- Introduced table banking to 3 groups which created a revolving fund of 1.2 Million shillings within 6 months.

Isinya

Kenya Tomatoes Ltd is a private owned farm located in Kajiado that specializes in growing tomatoes, capsicums and corriandor in both open field and green house set ups. My role entailed;- Developing planting and Spray programs for tomatoes and capsicums.- Labor Management.- Crop rotation scheduling.- Organizing and facilitating weekly farm toursHarvesting and post harvesting Handling.

Embu

Hand in Hand Eastern Africa is a Kenyan based NGO that supports small holder farmer and entrepreneurs create income generating activites.- I worked with the BoP in the community in value Chain development and capacity building on basic entrepreneurship.- I marketed Hand in Hand programs and projects to the communities and relevant government agencies.- Developed partnerships with different stakeholders on the ground as I linked SME farmers with markets.Impact- Recruited and trained more than 800 small holder farmers and entrepreneurs, 70% being women and youths, which led to creation of more than 300 enterprises and 700 jobs.

Isinya -Kajiado

Latia Resource Center focuses on capacity building farmers by organizing training and field days in their 60 acres model farm. My duties were;- Organizing and coordinating short courses, seminars and workshops in Latia.- Identifying and recruiting consultants to train on various courses and workshops. - Coordinating the development of training materials.- Marketing the courses and programs.- Handling farm visits and responding to clients enquiries.- Recruiting apprentices and organizing internships or jobs once they graduate.Impact- Was involved in organizing and running the apprenticeship program that saw 150 apprentices (both youth and women) graduate with farm management and agripreneurship skills.-Established a 4 acres fruit orchard for demos and revenue generation.

Isinya-Kajiado

My key responsibilities included;- Recruiting apprentices- Training Apprentices and farmers on Agripreneurship,- Organizing Training by making sure that training materials are well prepared by every trainer, - Preparing work plans and lesson plans,

Nairobi

I was attached in the Centre For Entrepreneurship And Leadership Department.My role was to assist in organizing seminars and workshops and registering participants for the same.I also was responsible for writing a monthly online newsletter for CE&L.