Consultant-Business Development Lead

Consultant – Business Development Lead

ICRISAT seeks applications from dynamic and motivated professionals for the position of Consultant – Business Development Lead.  The incumbent will work on a project Funded by SERVIR, to enhance the sustainability and fund mobilization for West Africa hub. The selected candidate will be placed remotely and will work out of their home country.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi- arid or dryland tropics has over 2 billion people and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations to overcome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agricultural production systems.

ICRISAT is headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions a prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics. ICRISAT conducts research on its mandate crops of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-arid tropics. The Institute focuses its work on the drylands and in protecting the environment. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor and perennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping dryland communities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Please visit - www.icrisat.org

Duties and responsibilities:

The BDL will have the following key responsibilities:

• Strategy Development: Develop and implement the hub’s annual business development strategy aligned with SERVIR’s network-wide sustainability objectives. This should capture expected outputs from the evolving services to inform business development strategies and market-entry plans.
• Funding Oversight: Actively scout for and monitor funding opportunities and solicitations, input them into the SERVIR tracking database (e.g., ticketing forms, HubSpot), maintain a proactive funding pipeline, and support proposal development in line with SERVIR’s proposal development SOP.
• Proposal Leadership: Coordinate proposal development across technical teams and regional partners, ensuring high-quality submissions aligned with SERVIR priorities.
• Partnership Development: Develop and maintain relationships with governments, donors, NGOs, research institutions, philanthropic organisations, and private-sector partners, including the design and implementation of business models tailored for non-traditional donors (e.g., philanthropic organisations, private sector entities, and individuals).
• Translating Technical Capability into Value: Work closely with the hub’s technical teams to understand evolving Earth observation and Geo-AI platform capabilities, and translate them into compelling value propositions, investment concepts, partnership opportunities, and proposal narratives that support sustainability and future fund mobilisation.
• Coordination: Work with the SERVIR Global secretariat and the other hubs to pursue multi-regional opportunities and share business development intelligence.
• Communication: Represent the hub at strategic conferences, donor meetings, and regional forums, communicating the impact and value of SERVIR’s services.

Qualifications:

• Minimum 5 years of progressively responsible experience in business development, resource mobilisation and project management.
• Demonstrated experience with international development organisations and development finance institutions (UN agencies, World Bank, AfDB, IFAD, GCF, GEF) as staff, consultant or lead counterpart on funded programmes.
• Strong track record in resource mobilisation: developing successful funding proposals and securing grants or investments from bilateral/multilateral donors, climate funds, philanthropic foundations or the private sector.
• Excellent proposal writing, negotiation, communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Ability to translate technical capability (Earth observation, GeoAI) into value propositions, investment concepts and proposal narratives.
• Full professional fluency in English (written and spoken).
• Strong interpersonal, collaboration, and teamwork abilities, with experience working effectively in multidisciplinary and multicultural environments.

General:

This is a contractual role for a period of 12 months (01 year)..

How to apply:

The position will remain open until a suitable candidate is identified. Shortlisting will start from 10 August 2026. Applicants should apply with their latest resume and the names and contact information of three references who are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to increasing diversity and maintaining a progressive and inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, age, marital status or whether they have a disability.