Pros
- Organization's vision is relevant and important: improving the lives of farmers' is central to any country's development - Opportunity to travel - visits to the field are always interesting - People are fun (partly because not many take the work seriously - see con below) - Field staff are extremely dedicated
Cons
- In many ways, the organization epitomizes all that is wrong with the development sector: bidding for projects despite having no real comparative advantage in the area; significant portion of project budget goes to pay senior leadership salaries instead of operations; focus is to satisfy the donor rather create any impact. - Country leadership completely disconnected from operations. Little clarity among staff on what leadership actually does. - ''Volunteer" consultants - who earn more than regular staff - bring a fresh perspective but too many see TechnoServe as a stepping stone for a MBA - "Business solutions to poverty" sounds nice in theory but often results in jargon-filled, albeit pretty, presentations in which synergies are created, low-hanging fruit is captured and core competencies are leveraged - but not much actually happens.