Educate! works to transform education in Africa to teach youth to solve poverty for themselves and their communities. Educate! provides youth with skills training in leadership, entrepreneurship and workforce readiness along with mentorship to start real businesses at school

Responsibilities

Country Operations oversight  30%

• Lead the country annual, quarterly and monthly planning and ensure clear articulation and thorough implementation of the key operations priorities
• Map out end-to-end logistics workflows and ensure systems build that enables distribution of field materials.
• Coordinate with the MD, Program managers and Finance Manager to identify gaps, challenges and solutions within operations with the goal of creating a cost-effective operating strategies to address such challenges
• Lead the  development of the operations workflows and tools to help teams operate effectively and drive the systems and processes standardization across all areas of operations
• Work closely with the Managing Director, program managers and Field Operations Manager to create procurement schedules for all field operation activities.
• Solve operations-related challenges based on deep research from reputable sources including peer organizations
• Ensure that the Common Cost Sheet is updated always and is 100% accurate
• Lead all country ops logistics planning and execution, including all staff logistics and retreats/meetings logistics

Leadership, Culture & Performance Management 20%

• Manage the operations team to achieve set goals and objectives and maintain overall oversight of work allocation
• Develop capacity building initiatives for all the operations teams and build a culture of continuous learning within the team
• Establish and maintain a strong, positive and engaged team culture. Promote Educate!’s cultural tenets within the team.
• Ensure a healthy pipelining and proactive talent management and workforce planning within the team
• Lead interdepartmental collaborative meetings to understand changes in the programs to inform the operations priorities
• Represent the operations in inter-departmental and strategic meetings
• Lead the annual performance reviews, provide feedback to the teams and lead training that equips the team to perform at their best. Identify areas of growth for the operations team and putting in place training and coaching initiatives to support the growth of the team

Operations Budgeting and Budget management 20%

• Lead the annual and quarterly budgeting and budget management processes for the operations department
• Lead the budget review for the operations department through the monthly and quarterly Budget versus Actual (BvA) process and ensure corrective actions are taken, where necessary
• Participate in the development of Quarterly operations goals and annual operations work plans
• Track operations budget consumption and ensure 100% fidelity to the set budgets.
• Flag potential budgets overspend and initiate the process of getting additional budget through a budget memo process
• Ensure full articulation and compliance to Budget manager’s guide in all operations work and across the teams

Procurement and procurement policies compliance  30%

• Develop and execute procurement plans and ensure that all programs procurement support and delivery is a top priority
• Implement the procurement policy and strategy and promote purchasing best practices to drive a culture of prudence in resource utilization and management.
• Ensure procurement processes are complete, accurate, documented and in  compliance with relevant laws and Educate! Policies
• Anticipate procurement needs to pre-select competitive vendors, and create systems to track and strategically guard against common procurement challenges
• Liaise with user departments to prepare monthly, quarterly and annual procurement plans to ensure timely closure of procurement needs.
• Ensure that standard operating procedures for the procurement function are understood and applied by staff.
• Lead the process of prequalification of service providers in anticipation of procurement needs
• Seek and act on feedback from end users on the quality of products delivered and general service levels to ensure value for money and to consistently deliver on excellence.

Requirements

Qualifications 

• Experience working in a high-growth startup organization – adopting new systems and structures as part of the growth.
• Experience managing medium to large-sized operational teams at scale and balancing multiple priorities
• Comfortable working with data, numbers, and reports with basic budget management experience
• Strong orientation to team culture and cross-functional work.
• Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree with at least 6 years of operations leadership experience

Location Details

• We prefer candidates based in Nairobi, Kenya
• We have a hybrid work philosophy! Teammates work from our offices twice per week and attend monthly team socials and culture-building events.

Terms

• Salary will be based on market factors and commensurate with experience.
• Benefits will align with the country of hire and typically include medical and travel insurance, flexibility on work hours and hybrid work, paid leave plus one week of office closure over the winter holidays, and more