Regional Manager North – Farm Accountancy Data Network

Are you looking for a leadership role that combines people management and project management? And do you also find it important to remain substantively active as an agricultural financial-economic specialist yourself? Then this position as Regional Manager North of the Farm Accountancy Data Network (Bedrijveninformatienet) may be the right opportunity for you.

As Regional Manager North of the Bedrijveninformatienet, you will lead a team of 15 agricultural financial-economic specialists working from our offices in Drachten (10) and Alkmaar (5).

Your Role

• You are the hierarchical manager of Team North. You serve as the first point of contact and sparring partner for your team members and are responsible for personnel management activities, including recruitment and selection, coaching and development, performance management, and absenteeism management.
• You provide project-based leadership for Region North. You coordinate the implementation of our main projects in your region: the Farm Accountancy Data Network for Agriculture and Horticulture and the National Monitoring Network for Manure Policy Effects. Your responsibilities include planning and work allocation, progress monitoring, quality assurance, and budget/time management.
• As a representative of your region, together with three other regional managers, two national project leaders, and the group head, you contribute to the further development of the Farm Accountancy Data Network. You provide input for the group’s strategic HR policy, contribute your expertise to the development of a new system for recording financial and sustainability indicators, and work on further professionalizing and optimizing work processes within your team.

These managerial responsibilities account for approximately 35–40% of your role. For the remaining time, you will be active—just like your team members—as an agricultural financial-economic specialist. This means you manage your own portfolio of agricultural businesses and are responsible for maintaining relationships with these entrepreneurs.

Your Responsibilities as Specialist

• You collect financial and sustainability data from agricultural businesses participating in the Farm Accountancy Data Network. You gather data from various external sources, digital invoices, or directly from the entrepreneur, and register it under coded identifiers in our secure system.
• You prepare an annual financial report for each entrepreneur, including key environmental indicators, and create a digital benchmarking overview in MijnAgrimatie.nl. You discuss these reports during on-site company visits.
• Each year, you recruit several new participants for the network to compensate for natural turnover.

Your Team
With a group of approximately 75 professionals—primarily agricultural financial-economic specialists and data stewards/functional administrators—we collect and process all financial and sustainability data for the Farm Accountancy Data Network. We operate from eight offices across the Netherlands. Wageningen and The Hague are the two main locations. Regional offices are located in Alkmaar, Drachten, Goes, Holten, Oisterwijk, and Meijel.

Each regional manager oversees two offices and serves as the first point of contact for both project and personnel matters. National project management is handled by the project leaders. The group head has overall responsibility for the Farm Accountancy Data Network.

About the Organization
The Bedrijveninformatienet is an expertise group within Wageningen Social & Economic Research, part of Wageningen University & Research.

The Farm Accountancy Data Network is also the name of a network consisting of approximately 1,500 agricultural and horticultural holdings, 150 forestry enterprises, and 100 fisheries. It is a statutory research task carried out by WUR on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LVVN), and it forms part of the European Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN).

You have experience with personnel and project management, preferably within a financial-administrative organization. You possess strong leadership and coaching skills, both at the individual and team level. You are able to steer based on content and project results, while maintaining trust and strong connections with your team members. You are a true team player who collaborates effectively with fellow managers and can also work independently.

In addition, you have:

• A completed higher professional education (HBO) degree in agriculture and/or economics, supplemented with a diploma in Modern Business Administration (MBA), or willingness to obtain the MBA diploma (training costs will be reimbursed);
• Up-to-date and extensive knowledge of the agricultural sector and business operations across different types of agricultural enterprises;
• Relevant work experience with digital accounting systems and/or financial automation processes, strong numerical insight, and an accurate working style;
• Excellent social and communication skills;
• Excellent command of Dutch and good command of English, both spoken and written. Proficiency in Dutch is mandatory for this role.
• A valid category B driving license.

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:

• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• sabbatical leave, study leave, and partially paid parental leave;
• there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
• a fixed year-end bonus of 8,3%;
• excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will of course receive a good salary. We offer, depending on your experience, a competitive gross salary of between €3.482,- and €5.478,- for a full-time working week of 36 hours, in accordance with the CLA Wageningen Research (scale 10; If you do not yet fully meet the job requirements, entry scale 9 may apply). For this position, an appointment of 32 hours per week is negotiable. Additionally, For this role a contract for 32 hours can be discussed. As for your contract, we initially offer a one-year contract that can be extended - if possible within (company) organizational circumstances - on good performance.

We encourage development and internal mobility within our organisation. Our recruitment and selection policy sets out the conditions that apply specifically to you as a (former) employee. If you have any questions, we are happy to help.

Your primary workplace for this position is Alkmaar or Drachten. You will work one day per week at the other location. In addition, partial remote working is possible in consultation.

The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment. With its roughly 30 branches, 7,600 employees (6,700 fte) and 13,100 students and over 150,000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.

Read the 5 reasons why your future colleagues enjoy working at WUR and watch the video below to get an idea of our green campus!

We will recruit for the vacancy ourselves, so no employment agencies please. However, sharing in your network is appreciated.