Chief of Staff, Oishii
Office located in Jersey City, NJ
Vertical strawberry farm
Job no longer available
Vertical strawberry farm
101-200 employees
Job no longer available
Office located in Jersey City, NJ
101-200 employees
Company mission
To revolutionise the agriculture industry, change the produce industry and raise the standard of fresh fruit in America.
Role
Who you are
- 7+ years experience in fast paced, demanding work environment; startup experience preferred
- Proven project management skills and capable of handling multiple complex projects at once of varying scope and complexity
- Able to dig in deeply to understand new/foreign topics rapidly and provide management with strategic guidance
- Natural leader capable of motivating your teams to accomplish ambitious goals
- Able to combine analytical, operational, and strategic expertise
- Strong communicator capable of navigating conversations at the executive level, with external partners, and with junior team members
- Significant experience in handling difficult interpersonal situations
- Results oriented and capable of designing and managing key metrics
- Team player with exceptional collaborative skills
- Highly organized with strong task management and prioritization skills
- Comfortable with ambiguity and able to provide structure to chaos
- Incredible ownership mindset - you do not make excuses, you just get the job done
What the job involves
- Lean into and crush any problem or project thrown your way, including fascinating strategic problem sets and mundane operational necessities
- Lead special projects and initiatives, both internally and externally facing, reporting results directly to C-Suite and key stakeholders
- Serve as liaison and C-Suite representative to Oishii leaders and team members, ensuring that management’s strategic priorities are understood and executed
- Build and maintain excellent rapport and trust across the organization, from entry level employee to board members
- Develop and manage processes for the C-Suite and senior leaders, including staff meetings, leadership updates, and all hands programming; prepare agendas, ensure notes are documented, manage KPIs, and support board meeting preparation
- Rapidly get up to speed on new, complex, and diverse topics in order to advise senior management on strategic direction
- Jump in and serve as C-Suite representative at any time, with high context
Our take
Vertical farming - a method of growing food year round in enclosed environments where every aspect of the climate can be controlled - has been commercially viable in Japan for some time, but has yet to make a significant impact in the US market. Oishii hopes to change this, bringing the Japanese Omakase strawberry to America, grown inside a vertical farm in New Jersey.
Vertical farming is considered to be a major solution to food production in a world affected by climate change, but so far investment has been sluggish, mainly because of the capital costs and poor returns from the kinds of food produced in them (kale and greens are the easiest to scale but don't attract much of a premium). Oishii stands out by targeting the very high end of the market with a fruit that has been impossible to grow in the US. While the cost for this production is high (though dropping as the operation scales), this has not deterred restaurants and organic food shops from ordering as many as Oishii can grow as buzz spreads.
Oishii has recently completed a Series A funding round, which will be used to expand the business into other types of crops and to establish more farms to increase production. Having established its ability to produce and market the most difficult crop in vertical farming, Oishii hopes to completely change the way we grow food.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Nov 2024
$16m
SERIES B
Feb 2024
$134m
SERIES B
Total funding: $205.1m
Company benefits
- Flexible PTO / holidays
- Paid Parental Leave
Company HQ
Jersey City, NJ
Leadership
Hiroki Koga
(CEO)Was Marketing Advisor at wetravel.to. Before that was a Senior Consultant (Agriculture) for Deloitte Consulting.
Brandon Somerville
(COO)Co-founded Avocado Oil Cooperative in Uganda. Was COO at Zeemi.tv and before that an officer in the US Marine Corps.
Salary benchmarks
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