Square Roots is an urban farming and entrepreneurship platform—powered by community, technology, and a love for local, real food. With an urban farming campus of hydroponic shipping container farms, specialized programming, and a strong community network, we empower entrepreneurial leaders through real food. We're now searching for a General Manager to join and lead our Brooklyn Campus team.
 

About Square Roots Resident Entrepreneurs:

Square Roots offers a 13 month, full-time program, for classes of 6-10 Resident Entrepreneurs. These people are typically taking their first steps as entrepreneurs in the food industry. Over the course of the year, Resident Entrepreneurs get hands on experience running a fully operational farming business. It is their responsibility to manage, run, and execute a business plan supported by Square Roots. We believe well-rounded real food leaders should have experience in the four pillars of Farming, Business, Community, and Leadership; therefore, throughout the year, the Resident Entrepreneurs are also required to participate in skill-based training, professional development, and experiential learning in each of these pillars.

About the Role:

This is a full-time permanent position based on our Campus in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. The General Manager will start off reporting to the CEO and is responsible for the overall success of the Brooklyn Campus.

Responsibilities are broad, but will include:

• Manage the Brooklyn Campus to ensure resources are properly deployed to support the Brooklyn Campus team in achieving Campus KPIs in all four pillars (Farming, Business, Community, & Leadership) resulting in the ultimate success of the Program:

Farming:

• Ensure the Farm Manager has clear KPIs for each farm and farming business team. Includes yield and revenue targets, farm maintenance and adherence to the Farm Operations Guidelines and Policies, specifically in regards to crop planning, food production, and quality control.
• Work closely with farming and programming to ensure any new farming processes and protocols are created, trained, rolled out and enforced, particularly as it pertains to the success of the Brooklyn Campus.
• Ensure the farms are safe and the Resident Entrepreneurs feel safe in them.

Business:

• Ensure the campus is hitting its overall revenue target and the Entrepreneurs have clear quarterly customer acquisition and revenue targets for their individual farming businesses.
• Ensure the Program Manager and Farming Manager are providing support, guidance, and direction to the Entrepreneurs, so they are able to hit those targets by following the sales channel and customer management guidelines including identifying, acquiring, managing, and maintaining customer relationships.
• Identify potential new markets, revenue-generating opportunities, and create business development strategies to ensure that the Entrepreneurs have the ability to generate the most amount of revenue across multiple platforms.

Community:

• Ensure the Brooklyn campus has a level of visibility with and is meaningfully engaging with the local community.
• Ensure the Program and Community Managers are providing the appropriate resources and guidance to the Entrepreneurs. That the Entrepreneurs are meaningfully engaging with our internal and external communities, by running and participating in events, identifying and actively interacting with community members, maintaining relationships, and building community programs.
• Ensure the Community Manager is hitting the digital engagement targets and maintaining a consistent and successful digital presence both at a Campus and Entrepreneur level by following the Social Media Playbook.

Leadership/Professional Development:

• • • Ensure the Entrepreneurs are happy and meaningfully engaging with and participating in the Program.
    • Ensure the Program Manager is providing and/or identifying internal and external resources that can provide professional development across all pillars. That all training, workshops,  speaker series, etc are executed seamlessly and attended by the Entrepreneurs and that each Entrepreneur has and is progressing with their individual development plans.
    • Ensure that weekly and monthly programming is planned, communicated, and delivered consistently and on schedule by the Program Manager in line with the Programming Playbook.
• Ensure all campus administration and reporting is consistent and timely, including financial management, Human Resource management, and facilities management:
  • Work with the Finance Manager to ensure proper and timely reporting is occurring, ultimately providing clean and clear management of the Entrepreneurs’ finances, as well as providing visibility for both the Entrepreneurs and Core/Campus team.
  • Work with the Operations Manager to ensure proper office policies and protocols are being followed and the office is running smoothly and seamlessly.
  • Liaise and maintain a productive working relationship with the building managers.
  • Ensure all administrative paperwork including the lease, insurance, etc is up to date and properly managed.
• Provide effective and efficient management of the Campus and Campus staff:
  • Run weekly Campus Meetings.
  • Conduct weekly/bi-weekly check-ins with Direct Reports to provide guidance and support, and ensure that they are hitting their respective targets.
  • Identify professional development and coaching needs of direct reports and ensure they are receiving the resources needed.
  • Working with the Community Manager, ensure team building events are happening on a regular basis and effectively engaging all campus team members.
• Other duties as assigned.

As a company, we operate - and hire - to a well-codified set of values, which help us scale not just activity, but also culture. We care less about years of experience than we do finding the right person - who can do a kickass job with the right cultural fit, value-alignment, and must have a passion for the future of food and entrepreneurial leadership.

It would also be extremely helpful if this person had some experience with:

• Executing entrepreneurial, or similar programming.
• Running a single or multi-unit storefront.
• Recruiting and onboarding.
• Being an entrepreneur.

However, this person must:

• Understand the importance of culture in the workplace and what it means to lead by example.
• Possess amazing communication skills (written, verbally, and visually) and has the ability to adjust their communication style to needs of those around them.  
• Be a fantastic manager, coach, and supporter of diverse talent (up, down, and sideways).
• Have a strong business development and customer management background.
• Be skilled at financial management (i.e. knows the ins & outs of a basic P+L).
• Understand measurable reporting formats (i.e. KPIs, OKRs).
• Have an incredibly flexible workstyle, and the ability to recognize and understand different workstyles of those around them.
• Know how to recognize patterns of frequently suggested ideas, and can communicate to make recommendations in order to turn them into scalable products and processes.
• Can move super fast while balancing priorities and needs from multiple teams.
• Be cool, calm and consistent.
• And be an incredible team player!