Chief of Staff
Chief of Staff
- Reports to Apollo's CPO, with a dotted line to the CEO
About Apollo Agriculture:
Apollo Agriculture is a leading agri-fintech platform empowering small-scale farmers across Africa to boost profits and farm sustainably. Apollo uses AI and automation to unlock the massive small-scale farming market, enabling farmers to access optimized financing, high-quality inputs, expert digital advice, and risk management solutions. Apollo has grown quickly since launch, already reaching more than 400,000 paying farmers across Kenya and Zambia. Apollo's technology helps smallholder farmers finance and supply critical farming inputs, advice, and risk solutions at a lower cost—enabling a future where millions of underserved farmers grow more, earn more, and thrive in a sustainable, market-driven system.
About the Role:
Apollo is hiring a Chief of Staff to add high-impact, flexible capacity to our leadership team — to own the most strategic, cross-cutting work the company doesn't yet have a home for. You'll lead a new push to pursue Apollo's biggest grant-funded opportunities, be the engine of follow-through across the entire business, and take on a rotating portfolio of high-stakes projects. This is a role for an all-purpose player who can move fluidly between strategy and execution, between donors and operators, and between the boardroom and the field.
Responsibilities
- Build and execute Apollo's novel grants strategy. You'll have a broad mandate to identify the right opportunities, win the funding and partnerships to pursue them, and deliver outcomes that change what Apollo does for farmers.
- Be the engine of follow-through across Apollo’s entire team. Sit in our most important meetings — planning, business reviews, deep dives — and make sure decisions become outcomes. The job depends on being high-context enough to push senior leaders credibly, not chase them from a distance.
- Take on special projects in partnership with the CEO, CPO and the rest of the leadership team. Your responsibilities will evolve and shift as Apollo grows. You'll thrive in this role if you embrace rather than struggle with frequent change.
- Work fast, think deeply, and take ownership — not just of your lane, but of Apollo's mission. You seek truth in the field, embrace data and feedback, and build with urgency. You push for excellence, not perfection.
- Are a worker. You know how to roll up your sleeves and work hard to solve important challenges.
- Are an exceptional writer and communicator. You turn complexity into clear, decision-ready material for leaders, donors, and investors, and you know what level of detail each audience needs.
- Are a strategic and analytical thinker. Comfortable with messy data and either fluent in SQL or excited to learn it.
- Can hold leaders accountable without owning the work yourself. Push back when you need to, escalate when it matters, and earn credibility by being right.
- Are at home in any setting: a farmer’s field, a donor pitch, a design meeting, or a performance review.
- Have a strong all-purpose operator background — consulting, high-growth tech, prior chief of staff, or similar cross-functional roles. Experience in grants, philanthropy, or impact capital is a plus.
- Are a mission-driven team working at the intersection of technology, operations, and agriculture to solve real problems for smallholder farmers.
- Move fast, take smart risks, and build with urgency — because our customers' livelihoods depend on what we deliver.
- Know that scale doesn't come from perfect plans, but from relentless iteration, grounded in deep thinking, field insights, and data.
- Listen deeply, debate openly, and collaborate across boundaries — because the best ideas often come from unexpected places.
- Care about outcomes, not ego. We hold ourselves and each other to a high bar, and we all roll up our sleeves to make the work excellent.
- Take ownership — of our work, our decisions, and our mission — and we do what it takes to move Apollo forward.
- Offer competitive compensation, meaningful ownership, and the chance to grow on a team that takes your work — and your development — seriously.
Apollo Agriculture does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, colour, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. Apollo Agriculture is an equal opportunity/equal access employer fully committed to achieving a diverse workforce.
Apollo Agriculture is committed to providing a safe and productive learning and living community. To achieve that goal, we may conduct background investigations for all final candidates being considered for employment. Background checks may include, but are not limited to, criminal history, national sex offender search and motor vehicle history.