The Supply Chain Support Officer Tea will join the tea team under RA’s Certification Led Sectors team. The goal of the certification led sector team is to facilitate the advancement of the organization’s strategic objective of sector transformation in RA’s crop portfolio. The tea team manages the organizations’ largest, most strategic and innovative accounts in tea and is responsible for co-creating sector strategies and convening cross-functional working groups to drive the success of the certification program and expand RA’s potential for social and environmental impact. Our team is truly global with colleagues based in the UK, the Netherlands, Kenya and India.

The successful candidate

Reporting to the Manager Strategic Accounts Tea, the Supply Chain Support Officer Tea will be responsible for proactively ensuring key partners in the tea trade possess the training, knowledge, and insights to effectively implement the 2020 Certification Program and RA’s traceability requirements on an ongoing basis. The Supply Chain Support Officer Tea will also support monitoring and reporting activities. Relationship management and customer satisfaction are guiding principles in this work. The successful candidate has exceptional communication skills, experience working collaboratively in a team environment, and demonstrates resilience to change.

The position

Responsible for actively supporting the Rainforest Alliance’s business partners in the tea sector (e.g. brands, manufacturers, processors, packers, traders), giving advice, onboarding, and training to assure compliance with the standards, policies, and requirements of our programs, including traceability and SAS2020 supply chain requirements. Uses best practice Customer Success processes to optimize customer experiences, meet team goals and grow the mission impact of the organization.

Responsibilities:

• The Rainforest Alliance’s Core Values are Impact, Change, Collaboration, Openness and Trust and as such they form the basis of the behaviours we demonstrate;
• Provide active support to tea supply chain CHs to enable them to achieve compliance with appropriate requirements in SAS2020. This will be facilitated by working closely with the Sectors tea team, country managers, and key markets relationship managers – and guided by the strategic account manager, tea.  Working in close cooperation with country, sector and key market relationship managers, as well as with CS;
• Identify actors in scope for certification and traceability across the Rainforest Alliance Program: In close coordination with the Strategic Account Manager, Key Account managers in critical markets, and Country managers in producing countries identify traders, processors, manufacturers, packers and brands in scope; liaise with Certification Partner Support and Customer Support Staff in the regions to facilitate onboarding of actors in producing countries;
• External Communication & Partner Support: In close coordination with country, sector and key market relationship managers and Customer Success proactively contact members of the trade in import countries to understand program requirements and ensure buy-in to the onboarding process, and support inquiries related to the certification program via calls and written correspondence; apply knowledge of RA’s certification policies and systems with a general working knowledge of the tea trade to effectively guide partners; provide in-depth trainings to stakeholders on core topics related to certification and compliance; monitor and report on the status of the trade in the 2020 certification program with the guidance of the Manager, Strategic Accounts Tea;
• Tea Team Collaboration: Escalate trending risks and opportunities with partner engagement in the certification program to the Strategic Account Manager and/or tea team and support an appropriate response;
• Cross-Functional Teamwork: Engage with colleagues in the customer success and standards & assurance departments to effectively meet the needs of partners; track the resolution of escalations to the supply chain certification and customer success team, especially cases related to traceability, and,
• Other duties as assigned.