Position: Regional Representative Africa
Team: Programme Team
Reports to: Chief Programme Officer
Based in: Nairobi
Salary range: KES 874,584 – KES 1,202,544 per month
The position
The Regional Representative Africa will be responsible for building a portfolio in sub-Saharan 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
- 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 childhoodprogrammes, 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.
Professional 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 organisational 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.
Van Leer Foundation Competencies: Teamwork, Learning ability, Result-oriented
Job Specific Competencies: Networking, Leadership, Negotiating, Entrepreneurship
About the Van Leer Foundation
The Foundation aims to contribute to inclusive societies where all children and communities can flourish. We do this by bringing people together with different perspectives and supporting them to achieve large-scale impact. Our work covers three main activities:
A Good Start. Giving all children a good start in life sets the foundation for inclusive societies. Through our flagship programme on early childhood development, we work globally to improve the wellbeing of babies, toddlers, and their caregivers. We provide investment and knowledge to help leaders develop and scale effective policies and services.
Van Leer Institutions. We believe the human sciences and the arts are powerful tools to promote inclusive societies because they can help make space for divergent views and mutual understanding. This underpins our support for the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Jerusalem Film Center. We support both through recurring annual grants.
The Endowment. We rely on our endowment to finance our philanthropic activities and do not raise funds. The endowment invests in a highly diversified portfolio of public market equity and debt and has a substantial allocation to private equity. The full portfolio is screened to meet ESG criteria. We also have an allocation for mission-related investments (MRI) through which we invest in funds aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals closest to our work on early childhood development.
Our team consists of 40+ professionals representing more than 20 nationalities. We have offices in Brazil, India, Israel, Jordan, and the Netherlands. The team has a wide array of expertise including in early childhood development, urban planning, effective philanthropy, public policy, executive education, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy, strategic communications, impact investing and financial management.
How to Apply
The recruitment process is managed by Shortlist. To apply, please submit your CV and motivation letter in English to https://shortlist.thriveapp.ly/job/114
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is closed.
Early application is strongly encouraged. For any questions, please contact Agnes Buis at Agnes.Buis@vanleerfoundation.org.
This position was originally posted by BvL Foundation and has been curated by PurposePhil Career. To apply, please visit the original listing on the "apply" link on the side. We are not affiliated with the employer organization of this job ad or consultancy, and provide this curated listing as a service to our users.
