Area Operations Officer – Nyeri at Food For Education

About the role

• Food for Education (F4E) feeds over 600,000 children across Kenya every school day,  and we're scaling to one million meals a day. That growth only happens because people show up in the field every day with ownership. As an Area Operations Officer, you are the operational backbone of 4 production sites (kitchens) in your area. Each site comprises 2-4 Kitchen Officers (cooks). You're not a supervisor passing down instructions, you're the person who makes sure every kitchen under your watch runs safely, efficiently, and to standard. You know your sites better than anyone: their performance, their challenges, their opportunities. You bring solutions, not just reports.
• This is a field-based role. You'll visit 1-2 sites each day - you’re on the ground, in the kitchens, with the teams.

Your Mandate

Site Operations & Standards

• Conduct structured audits of your sites, ensuring compliance with F4E's SOPs, food safety policies, and operational standards.
• Train kitchen staff on SOPs and communicate policy updates — you're the bridge between the service centre and the sites.
• Ensure every site has what it needs to operate: stock, PPE, equipment, and supplies are 
• Validate stock takes twice a month at every site you oversee.

Financial Oversight

• Own your understanding of cost-per-meal (CPM) variance across all your sites. You are the person who knows why costs moved, and you surface both concerns and opportunities to your manager.
• Support billing processes in partnership with your Regional Coordinator and the finance team.
• Drive timely procurement: 90% of orders submitted on time, every cycle.

Data, Reporting & Analysis

• Track, synthesize, and report on performance trends at the school and kitchen level
• Respond to data requests from the service centre with accuracy and speed.
• Own yield variance analysis — understand the drivers, flag anomalies, and recommend corrective action.

Capacity & Growth

• Understand your site’s capacity: you know when sites are over- or under-utilized and proactively bring that intelligence to your manager.

Stakeholder Management

• Build and maintain relationships with other field teams and school leadership in your area. This includes occasional check-ins with the schools you serve to learn about how you and your team can improve the experience. 
• Coordinate and host site visits for F4E staff and donors.

Facility Maintenance

• Own 100% reporting and escalation of facility maintenance issues; nothing is left unreported, nothing is someone else's problem.

Who You Are

• You have experience in operations, field management, or program delivery, ideally in food systems, health, or a service organization.
• You're comfortable spending your days in the field. You don't manage from a desk.
• You're analytically strong. You can read data, spot a trend, and explain the 'so what' clearly.
• You hold yourself and others to high standards. You don't wait to be asked to escalate a problem.
• You build genuine relationships with community stakeholders, local officials, and school leaders.
• You communicate clearly, upward and downward, and you know the difference between information and insight.

Core Competencies: 
Technical:

• Program Implementation
• Data Literacy & Reporting
• Budgeting & Financial Management
• Quality Assurance
• Logistics & Field Coordination
• Stakeholder & Community Engagement
• Risk Assessment & Management
• Digital tools & data collection
• Capacity building & training
• Project/activity management

Soft Skills & Behavioral:

• Communication
• Problem Solving & Adaptability
• Independence & Proactivity
• Attention to Detail
• Partnership Coordination
• Planning & Coordination
• Compliance & Ethics
• Ownership & Accountability