Johannesburg: Vice President of Agriculture

About the Role

The Vice President of Agriculture will lead the execution of agricultural operations across our nurseries and field sites, overseeing plant propagation to harvest. This role requires a strong background in agriculture, biotechnology, or a related field, with extensive hands-on experience in managing pilot programs and transitioning agricultural systems to commercial scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Owning the execution of agricultural operations across nurseries and field sites, from plant propagation to harvest.
• Leading pilot and field programs with accountability for plant health, biomass yield, and metal uptake performance.
• Managing external contractors (nurseries, farmers, CROs), labour teams, and field service providers, ensuring quality control and scale-up readiness.
• Building and managing performance tracking systems and field reporting protocols, ensuring strong nursery- and field-level data collection and reporting.
• Designing and overseeing propagation systems for wild and genetically enhanced plant lines.
• Optimising vegetative propagation protocols (cuttings, mother block, tissue-culture based methods as applicable).
• Serving as the primary interface between agricultural operations, R&D teams, and downstream processing functions.
• Ensuring lab-developed plant traits, growth protocols, and handling requirements are effectively being transferred into nursery and field operations.
• Providing structured field feedback to R&D to inform plant improvement, protocol refinement, and prioritisation.
• Aligning agricultural outputs, including biomass characteristics and harvest specifications, with downstream processing and extraction requirements.

Requirements

• Advanced degree in Agronomy, Plant Science, Agricultural Engineering, Biology, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on operational experience.
• Minimum 10 years’ hands-on experience in agricultural operations, including propagation and field trials.
• Demonstrated experience deploying novel plant systems or biotechnology from laboratory or greenhouse environments into open-field operations.

Qualifications

• Valid passport; frequent travel to our operating locations in South Africa will be required.
• International travel to our HQ in France may be necessary.

Note: There are no qualifications mentioned in the original job description.