The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The Global Growth & Opportunity (GGO) division works to catalyze sustainable and transformative socio-economic change. In the face of inequities and market failures, GGO seeks to realize the potential of untapped markets, and ensure that economic and social benefits reach everyone. We focus on the areas of Agricultural Development; Digital Public Infrastructure; Inclusive Financial Services; Global Education, Nutrition, and Water, Sanitation & Hygiene. We seek solutions that are sustainable, transformative, and inclusive with an eye toward applying technology innovations as well as data evidence to drive change in the world’s developing countries.

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is about enabling a technology-led model for growth that is collaborative, inclusive, equitable and democratizes opportunity at population scale that will help us achieve our program strategies goals. While DPI is an evolving concept, there is a growing consensus on it being a combination of (i) networked open technology standards built for public interest, (ii) enabling governance, and (iii) a community of innovative and competitive market players working to drive innovation, especially across public programs and policy goals, and break barriers for greater inclusion. The DPI approach is about moving from platforms to open networks powered by protocols. Several key foundational categories of digital public infrastructure include identifiers and registries; data sharing and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning models; signatures and consent.

The Africa team works to enable the foundation’s ambitious goals of scaling evidence-based interventions that target a range of diseases and socio-economic conditions which are endemic across Sub-Saharan Africa. The team implements its responsibility through direct country engagement to deploy interventions and delivery models, and by building the partner architecture to replicate successful interventions and models across multiple countries.

Your Role

We seek an experienced and driven Senior Program Officer, DPI, who will collaborate strategically to co-develop and co-manage one or more portfolios of grants and contracts requiring grant management skills, monitoring, and evaluation, to support the development and scaling of DPIs in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a topical expert, you will be a technical advisor to other foundation programs seeking to implement their solutions with a DPI approach. You will also work collaboratively with a global team to contribute to refine and track progress against the team’s strategic vision. The role will require working with a diverse range of internal colleagues/teams, technical and scientific partners, governments, multilateral institutions across a wide array of domains and expertise. International experience, strategy development, communications, partnership development, and deep technical expertise are crucial for success in this role.

The postholder will be based in Nairobi, Kenya, and report to the Director, Economic Opportunity, Africa, in close collaboration with the Director, DPI.

What You’ll Do

The selected candidate will be responsible for the following tasks:

1. Co-develop, manage, and execute a portfolio of relationships, grants and contracts to advance DPIs within the context of a globally matrixed team, contributing to economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Apply a rapid ‘risk-adjusted’ approach to develop a portfolio-level strategy that supports a) the testing and development of promising DPIs; b) the scaling of proven DPIs and; c) extracts learnings that can benefit internal and external stakeholders. Ensure the strategy is aligned to the overall team goals.
• Negotiate, execute, and manage a complex portfolio of grants or performance-based contracts. Review letters of inquiry and grant proposals and provide clear, concise, and insightfully written analyses and recommendations for funding.
• Consult with internal program co-owners, grantees, and other partners to maximize project impact and ensure grants are meeting strategy goals; this may include conducting site visits, providing operational guidance, and convening meetings of key stakeholders.
• Co-develop, manage, resource, and implement a program that aligns with foundation strategy and is operationally integrated with other foundation programs across the matrix; contribute to the design of new strategies, collaborations, and implementation plans to ensure long-term sustainability and impact.
• Advise the foundation leadership on areas related to your expertise, including writing and producing briefings, reports, updates, and other materials.

2. Represent the foundation to key program-related external constituencies, as appropriate, on committees related to the area of expertise and responsibilities of the position.

• In alignment with other internal program teams, work with partner organizations (e.g., technical experts, researchers, etc.) and key government partners to support data-driven decision making and long-term capacity building efforts on inclusive digital strategy within government.
• Develop anchor partners for digital collaborations and ecosystem development, both at the national level and in foundation priority states within countries, while staying aligned with the overall strategy.
• Serve as a point of contact on issues for internal and external collaborators, working within the complex matrix-style organization across the foundation.

3. Provide technical expertise to other foundation programs seeking to implement digital strategies aligned to a DPI approach.

• Provide input and review on all to other foundation teams and programmatic focus areas interested in implementing DPI.
• Lead the intake process, provide expertise on decisions related to digital public goods and the DPI approach, technical architecture of solutions, understanding of open source solutions within the DPI stack.
• Manage a bench of subject matter experts that can provide deeper technical assessment.

4. Contribute to building a cohesive, high-impact, cross-foundation team focused on innovation and scaling of inclusive DPI in priority geographies and ensuring sustainability of the supporting ecosystem.

• Model the values and practices of a culture that promotes inclusivity, rigor, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Work closely with both the Seattle-based DPI team and the regional and country teams to advance shared work

5. Other duties as assigned.

Your Experience

We are looking for a recognized global professional with deep expertise about DPIs in low-and middle-income countries. Additional knowledge and skills include:

• Advanced degree required with 10+ years of demonstrated experience in a senior technical advisory role in Africa, ideally for tech companies, government, consultancy, think tanks, NGOs or similar.
• Depth of technical, economic, and political understanding of the DPI ecosystem in Africa and how it is evolving in priority geographies – including key trends, barriers, and opportunities to test high impact use cases for under-resourced and underserved populations.
• Depth of knowledge of low-and-middle income contexts, as well as the experience of historically marginalized groups (e.g. women, poor, rural).
• Experience with social impact investing and an eye towards impact for marginalized groups, scale, and sustainability.
• Can collaborate effectively and with diplomacy to produce high-quality, high-impact outputs in a matrixed organization.
• Excellent strategic thinker and strategy development experience.
• Experience managing grant portfolios and an understanding of the role of donors in advancing DPI efforts, is desirable.
• Demonstrated ability to organize/prioritize work and meet deadlines within a fast-paced environment with multiple and competing demands.
• An innovative thinker who is hands-on and willing to go as deep or broad as necessary to achieve outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to question and challenge colleagues in a constructive manner.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English, able to effectively synthesize information to reach diverse audiences and create consensus.

Other Attributes

• Comfortable in a wide range of cultural, geographic and operational situations, demonstrating culturally sensitive behavior with a diverse range of people and a deep commitment to development issues and high standards of personal integrity.
• Ability to travel up to 40% domestically and internationally.

Application deadline: 4 November 2024

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Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.