Senior Officer, Quality of Implementation (APAC)

Position summary:

The Rainforest Alliance is looking for a Senior Officer, Quality of Implementation (QoI), Mainland Southeast Asia to coordinate with and report to the Senior Manager, QoI APAC to work on the assurance and quality challenges in the countries Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and other countries as agreed in future, to address risk issues.

Working in close collaboration with the Country Director and country teams, Customer Success and other QoI staff, the Senior Officer will work to improve specific issues related to the implementation and auditing of the Rainforest Alliance 2020 Certification Program by Certificate Holders (CHs) and Certificate Bodies (CBs).

The Senior Officer will support on and implement the operational activities of the Global Assurance department for Mainland Southeast Asia, helping to ensure the credibility and functioning of the Standard and Assurance system activities. The Senior Officer mainly supports in the license review process, training of CBs and regional staff and Associated Trainer Networks (ATNs) on the 2020 RA Standard and conducts country risk assessments on the main production and auditing contexts.

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.

• Representing the QoI Asia Pacific team in several internal thematic working groups, contributing to organization-wide strategies and initiatives on new offerings.
• Contributing to the improvement of RA's assurance policies and processes together with other regional QoI team, which has had a substantial impact on operational efficiency and compliance.
• Be responsible for the operation of the Rainforest Alliance certification program in the assigned countries and in coordination with senior management.
• Gives support, answers question, gives information and advice - via e-mail and by phone - to the Assurance team, Country Directors, overseas colleagues and CBs on the RA standards and the implementation of certification rules.
• Reviews and interprets audit results, as well as licences, checks credibility cases and compliance, solves problems and/or makes recommendations if necessary and as a senior Officer, also handles and interprets certificates.
• Lead workshops, trainings and/or webinars based on training needs assessments and the training modules to CBs and occasionally to CHs and supply chain actors under the guidance of Senior Manager.
• Supports the implementation and execution of the Standards & Assurance Asia Pacific annual plan and activities, including observing audits.
• Develop the country risk assessments and use this information to design and implement Quality of Implementation activities for the region. Manage reputational risks in coordination with QoI senior management and regional Management.
• Maintain an analysis for QoI management of the regional activities, including audits, non-conformities, quality of a sample of audit reports and licenses to evaluate the interpretations for the Standard and certification rules, information about selling/purchasing certified volumes along supply chain and makes recommendations, if necessary.
• Initiate and organize the development and implementation of the annual plan together with the Senior Manager Asia Pacific for the assigned countries and coordinate the annual plan with the broader regional/country plans to capture synergies.
• Provide input and contributes to country-specific projects where Assurance is part of to prevent re-occurrence of credibility issues in the region.
• Organize consultation sessions for stakeholders (internal and external) to discuss adjustments to standards or assurance policies based on questions and/or needs received; and
• Works together with member monitoring and field teams to identify the need for standard contextualization, policy and guidance. Identifies assurance risks and passes this onto the Assurance Quality Management team and Assurance management.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in agronomy/ rural development/ sociology/ environmental science/ forestry or equivalent professional work experience.
• Demonstrated ability (5 years’) in sustainable agriculture certification, coffee, cocoa or tea supply chains or equivalent.
• Proficient in Microsoft Excel, Word, and Outlook with a demonstrated experience in accounting software and working knowledge of PowerPoint.
• Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Fluency verbal and written communication skills in English and Vietnamese.
• Demonstrated commitment to the RA mission and values.
• Ability to travel a minimum of 25% per year in the region and/or internationally.

Level: 4

Deadline: 01 August 2025

Location: This is a fully remote role and we will consider candidates located and legally permitted to work anywhere in Vietnam .

If you have any questions about the job vacancy, please contact the HR department: recruitment@ra.org

The Rainforest Alliance encourages diversity and inclusion across the global organization. With this commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ages, disability and any other protected group.