A place where talent and hopes come to die . - Anonymous employee myAgro Employee Review

1.0
27 Oct 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The best thing about myAgro is probably the idea of it. Who doesn't want to work to truly improve the livelihood of small farmers in Mali, Senegal and Tanzania? The talents that are recruited for the most are brilliant and have some actionable experience. That's it.

Cons

Oh well, where do I start? 1. The founder Anushka: She's one of the least empathetic person I've met so far. While she's obviously intelligent and that the idea behind myAgro is innovative, she also cannot let go. She micromanages everything. Her random changes of heart/strategy and her lack of understanding of the social tissue in countries we operate is the first reason why there are no durable processes at myAgro. Furthermore, she has ZERO respect for the work people do after endless hours because she will chuck it away to bring her own idea (even if it's a bad idea). And perhaps the reason I have less respect for her now is that I witnessed her humiliating field people on some occasions. 2. MANAGERS: If you're looking for the poster managers, you've hit the nail. The managers here have mastered the art of turning good work from associates and the field into garbage. Not only don't they have the skills to advise and coach the people they manage, they go out of their way to make the work unnecessarily complicated and inefficient. Some won't hesitate to bully you to get things done (that includes unnecessary shouting, humiliating you or giving you unreasonable deadlines). Many mid-level managers/directors are half of the time lost and do not know what is truly going on. They will jump on your project and ask you to do things their way, most of the time terrible ideas that do not make any sense. All without caring if you're busy on other projects or not. If they want you to do something, you have to do it the quickest way possible, without questions. If you dare pitch in and point at some inconsistencies, they will take it personally or call you negative. 3. EXPLOITATION OF FIELD TEAMS The so-called impact of myAgro is built at the detriment of field teams. The company justify the current payment system of the village entrepreneurs by the fact that they are "ENTREPRENEURS". It's all a scam, though. They have to walk insane distances to reach the targets they are allocated, call farmers without any phone credit allocation. You cannot work in development of communities the way myAgro claims to do it while mistreating the very people that sustain those communities. 4. Lack of transparency in positions, career advancement and evaluation : one thing only will get you a career advancement at myAgro. It's to WORSHIP the leadership/ managerial team and do what they say without questions, while blatantly telling them what they want to hear so that you appear as the SOLUTION-DRIVEN employee. If you worry about working the right way, for what is good for the company in the long run and if you question things, you won't last long there. Moreover, there is a DISTINCT discrimination when it comes to treatment of local people versus expats that I was able to observe.

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myAgro Response
4y
First, we would like to say that we are disappointed that your experience at myAgro was not what you expected. Our hopes are that any team member joining myAgro has an incredible experience, grows and develops personally, as well professionally, and ultimately has an opportunity to contribute to our mission of serving farmers. At the risk of sounding defensive:-), I do believe your assessment of myAgro is not accurate. As someone that consistently receives feedback, both good and bad, from team members at all levels, what I hear is that myAgro is a good place to work, grow, and make an impact in the world. That’s not to say that we are perfect. We have many areas where we can improve and we work on them continuously. The Leadership team of any company is required to insert themselves into the business when needed. Course correction in a scaling organization that works in Sales and Agriculture is necessary. Those decisions are not done in isolation, as many people are involved before any decision is rolled out. But the fact is, all 500+ team members can not contribute to every decision the organization makes. We do our best to include the right people and listen. We also recognize a need to communicate the context behind decisions to all levels more often and do more after-action-reviews (a practice at myAgro) to better understand what went well and what needs improvement. Every season we learn how to better support and invest in our field team. To share a few of the actions / positives: - Commission plans for the field team continue grow year over year - Professional development: VEs and sales teams are trained on new technology, on sales techniques (by professional Sales Trainers), on work planning, agricultural practices and customer service - Village Entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to earn more money via their entrepreneurial activities with myAgro than they could on their own - Village Entrepreneurs are recognized in their communities as leaders for the work they do with myAgro and the farmers from their villages - myAgro provides VEs with phones and other tools needed for their roles I invite you to see a few stories from our VEs on this page celebrating our 10 year anniversary. https://www.myagro10.org/ myAgro values all of it’s team members and places a lot of importance on equality within the organization. Our salaries and benefits apply to the role regardless of where you are from. We rolled out a new Performance Management toolkit to provide more clarity on Job Groups within myAgro, and we have engaged a consultant to work with us to create more transparency and clarity on our salary grids, benefits, and promotion opportunities (to be rolled out in the summer of 2022). myAgro is a growing and learning organization. Our goal of 1 million farmers is real, not aspirational. The organization and our teams continue to evolve and develop at a rapid pace, and we will continue to make mistakes and learn from them. That’s part of the enjoyment of working at myAgro, in my opinion. Lastly, I wanted to say that we are disappointed that you did not walk away from myAgro with a positive experience. If you would like to provide additional feedback, please feel free to reach out to me and I would appreciate the opportunity to hear from you. Shon Morris Chief of People Operations

Explore other reviews about myAgro

5.0
15 Jul 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The organization attracts and hires employees who are very talented and kind, who take the mission to heart, and I am so grateful to have such a positive and inspiring work environment. The work is challenging, and as we are growing, there are always new challenges. All myAgro employees are given the opportunity to grow through a professional development plan that is supported by their manager. I have seen colleagues promoted and or even move to a different department based on acquiring new skills. As a remote employee, I cherish the annual trips to West Africa to connect in person with teammates and visit the field to see our mission in action.

Cons

The organization culture values results, sometimes at the cost of building sustainable systems. This "just get it done" attitude can be frustrating and counter-productive to building a scalable model. I have read negative reviews on this site about our founder. Personally, I find her to be ambitious, brilliant, inspiring and charming. With that ambition, she can come off as demanding, and those working for her as a direct report should be confident in challenging her ideas and sometimes saying "no".

9
4.0
15 Aug 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Work life Balance great benefits Supporting Teams Great Mission

Cons

Low salaries compared to other companies

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