THE POSITION

• The Regional Representative Africa will be responsible for building a new portfolio in subSaharan Africa. The Representative will be tasked with building upon previous work and current partnerships – with an emphasis on working with other philanthropies, government, and business for increased scale and learning.
• The Representative will be the main point of contact for all our partners in the region. Using the Foundation’s expertise, network, and available financial resources, the Representative will have the mandate to: (i) manage and monitor existing partnerships in sub-Saharan Africa; and (ii) develop new partnerships in alignment with the Foundation’s priorities in the region.
• This portfolio is part of the Foundation’s larger strategic focus on building partnerships with other philanthropies with long-term commitment to a region. The Africa portfolio will play a strategic role in contributing early childhood knowledge, technical expertise, and funding with local partners.

PRINCIPAL RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS

• Serve as the Foundation’s primary point of contact for partners in sub-Saharan Africa for partnership development
• Source new partnerships with philanthropies, government and/or business for providing financial, technical, and knowledge support
• Build, strengthen and maintain partnerships in order to:
• Bolster implementation of and support for early childhood programmes, services, and physical spaces
• Grow and strengthen the overall field of early childhood in the region
• Actively monitor and manage grants, projects, and programmes
• Lead coordination of technical assistance to partners, including through executive education courses, study tours and capacity building support offered by the Foundation and its partners
• Travel frequently to countries with new or existing partnerships
• Ensure all flagship projects have robust documentation, learning, and monitoring and evaluation activities built in and monitor these regularly
• Represent the Foundation through speaking and writing in public fora
• Contribute to the knowledge base of the Foundation by regularly sharing insights and knowledge coming out of the portfolio work with all Foundation teams
• Contribute to the Foundation and its organisational priorities on a periodic basis, in ways that may go beyond the specific responsibilities of the portfolio
• Manage consultants in the region and work closely with the Programme Support and
• Learning team in The Netherlands

PROFFESIONAL CONTACTS

• Inside the Foundation: Programme Team and all Foundation staff
• Outside the Foundation: Philanthropies, governments, technical partners, multilateral organisations, and business

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES

• Excellent leadership, strategic planning and management skills
• 10+ years’ experience funding/designing/implementing social policy programmes is an advantage, but we will also consider applicants with a private sector background who have a track record of building and managing high-impact partnerships and an interest in social change
• Specific expertise in early childhood development, urban development or both is an advantage
• Demonstrated capacity to build trusted relationships with a wide range of stakeholders including government, business, academia, non-government organisations, philanthropy and civil society institutions
• Demonstrated capacity to deliver results through collaboration, diplomacy and negotiation
• Experience organizing and managing multi-stakeholder partnerships
• Excellent planning, goal setting, prioritization and organizational skills
• Strong experience in monitoring and evaluation
• Strong commitment to our mission
• High degree of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and empathy
• Comfortable working under pressure and on a wide range of tasks
• Experience working in an international organization in which team members around the world collaborate remotely
• Ability to communicate effectively verbally and in written English
• Knowledge of regional language (s) a plus.

Organisational competencies:

• Teamwork
• Learning ability
• Result driven
• Job specific competencies:
• Networking
• Leadership
• Negotiating
• Entrepreneurship