The GE Gender Impact Accelerators team has launched a Digital Connectivity initiative with a central mission: accelerate gender equality through sustained closure of the gender digital divide. Launched in 2022, the Gender Equality division’s Digital Connectivity learning agenda (GEDC) focuses on investments in gender-intentional digital products, tools and partnerships, action-oriented research and advocacy, in order to answer a central question: how might we best advance meaningful digital connectivity that improves the lives and livelihoods of women and girls in the geographies and contexts where we work?

Multiple foundation teams are working on the development and deployment of digital tools and services with a desire to advance their sector-specific outcomes. There is growing recognition of the importance of digital access in enabling sectoral outcomes for women and girls and persistent gender digital divides in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa despite cost and coverage improvements. The GE division launched the GEDC learning agenda as an effort to expand data, evidence, and experimentation to address barriers to meaningful digital connectivity of women and girls, such as affordability, accessibility, literacy, relevance of content, safety and security, and norms.

What You Will Do

• Develop and manage catalytic strategic external partnerships, including influencing and shaping the design and implementation of gender-intentional digital products and platform initiatives that are action-oriented and data and evidence-based.

• Create and actively manage a collaboration-forward portfolio of investments, drawing insights and learnings to inform both the team’s strategy and to promote evidence-informed decision-making in and across the public, private and non-profit sectors.

• Lead and grow a creative, generative cross-foundation community of practice that aims to energize and coalesce around evidence and high impact pathways to accelerate women’s digital connectivity across the Foundation, including co-creating complex, multi-team investments.

• Establish and maintain relationships with internal colleagues and partners on high impact opportunities to integrate learning agenda questions and digital connectivity innovations into programmatic investments, strategies, and partnerships.

• Capture and synthesize findings from partnershipsto evaluate progress against the digital connectivity learning agenda, and communicate data, insights, and strategic analysis regularly to leadership, the team, partners, and stakeholders, including the creation of global public goods (e.g. reports, briefs, decks) that benefit the GE division, other Foundation teams, and external stakeholders and policymakers.

• Manage interdependencies, communicate program requirements, track progress, make decisions, identify, and mitigate risks.

• Partner deeply across the GEDC strategy, planning and management team and the research and measurement team to ensure strong interconnections and operational tightness within a small, interdependent team.

• Partner with the Gender Equality program Policy Advocacy and Communications team to turn programming insights into advocacy and communications opportunities.

• Represent the foundation, the GE division, and the Digital Connectivity team in public events, meetings, and others across a variety of audiences.

• Support the implementation of creative solutions to guide inclusive processes (e.g., crafting and facilitating matrixed conversation, handling conflict, encouraging alignment).

• Balance competing priorities and be an engine to keep the collective work of a dispersed team moving forward.

Your Experience

• We are looking for a team member who enjoys working on complex problems and has a passion for influencing, inspiring, and collaborating with people using data and evidence to transform the lives of people around the world. You have deep knowledge about at least one topic related to the gender digital divide (e.g., digital literacy, access and affordability of connectivity, digital applications to support health or economic outcomes, the intersection of gender and technology) and a strong network across sectors.
• You have built strategic partnerships internally in your organization and externally with big tech, government institutions, and/or influential private and public sector organizations that have led to meaningful impact and you have the ability to influence, negotiate, and shape partnerships to transform lives and livelihoods of women and girls in an action-oriented, evidence-driven way.
• You are a sophisticated relationship manager, able to know when and how to support and influence partners. You have demonstrated an ability to navigate matrixed organizations, see opportunity in ambiguity, and communicate effectively with tact. You are prepared to work across a diverse set of subject areas, bridging a wide range of expertise, all while being a great teammate, with an ability to work with flexibility, efficiently, and with diplomacy in an exciting, challenging environment.

Additionally, we seek:

• An advanced degree coupled with a minimum of 8+ years of work experience in strategic partnerships for gender-equal digital inclusion or relevant equivalent experience.

• Excellent strategic partnership, community building, and relationship management skills and judgment. Ability to see and define connections across different stakeholders, internally and externally, and parlay those into demonstrablycatalytic collaborations.

• Exposure to evidence-based grantmaking, with a strong preference for direct experience making and managing a portfolio of investments/partnerships.

• Field-based or delivery experience understanding the practical challenges of implementing digital products, tools, and platform interventions in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa particularly with the private sector or multilateral institutions.

• Experience creating, leading, and facilitating active community of practice and/or coalitions.

• Preference for knowledge about the potential for digital tools to advance both health and economic outcomes.

• Demonstrated capacity toanalyze, use, and generate data and evidence as a driving tool for partnership development and ecosystem influence strategies.

• Knowledge of strategy development and implementation, and accountability mechanisms.

• Ability to define a plan and implement against established goals; results-oriented with an ability to prioritize and focus and get things done within a complex organizational structure.

• Comfort with ambiguity and working in start-up mode on a small and agile team.

• Ability to work in a self-guided manner, balance multiple priorities and to self-manage demanding timelines.

• Excellent organizational, facilitation, oral, and written communication skills.

• Understanding of how to bring intersectional problem-solving approaches to strategies.

• A commitment to and orientation towards a diversity, equity, and inclusion mentality and application, including adept cross-cultural communication and relationship development skills.

• Demonstrated agility and initiative to solve unstructured problems with creativity, high energy, and a positive outlook.

• A highly cultivated sense of resilience. Can accept and recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and drive forward in the face of adversity.

• A sense of humor and a penchant for fun.

• Commitment to the foundation’s core values, mission, and programs with an approach that is consistent with the foundation’s guiding principles while holding oneself to the highest ethical standards.