Program Lead, East Africa

Position Title: Program Lead, East Africa

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Type: Fully remote with travel to in-person meetings and events 

Reports to: Dr. Norah Obudho, East Africa Director

Hours per week (average): 40 (full-time)

Vision and Mission  

WomenLift Health envisions a world where diverse, accomplished leaders collectively transform health outcomes. To realize that vision, we seek to expand the power and influence of talented mid-career women in health and engage with senior institutional and societal leaders to catalyze systemic change for gender equality in health leadership. We work in East Africa, India, North America, and Southern Africa and continue to explore outreach to other regions.

Work 

Established in 2019, we work to advance gender equality in health leadership through a range of actions at the individual, institutional, and societal levels. This includes “Leadership Journeys,” which focus on equipping mid-career women with tools, strategies and peer, mentor and coach support, to successfully use their voice, expertise and leadership for impact. We initiate dialogue and partnerships with senior leaders in health institutions taking steps to prioritize gender equality. Our work also includes convening global conversations about the importance of women’s leadership, amplifying the voices of national and global health leaders including at the bi-annual WomenLift Health Conference. 

Our Culture and Values 

We are building a diverse, entrepreneurial team of people who bring unique cultural and technical perspectives and experiences. We welcome results-oriented problem-solvers of any nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and disability. We are a growing organization that is committed to building a culture with our partners that values: 

• Collaborative leadership that celebrates diverse perspectives and experiences and ensures everyone contributes to their full potential. 
• Partnership grounded in humility, respect, empathy, and inclusion. 
• Transformative change based upon bold, strategic thinking combined with adaptability and pragmatic action. 
• Spirit of learning ensures we are open, forward-looking, constructive, and committed to growing collectively and individually. 
• Achieving impact by improving global health and gender equality. 

POSITION SUMMARY

WomenLift Health is seeking an East Africa Program Lead to work under the direction of the East Africa Program Director and in close collaboration with their teammates around the globe. This position will be responsible for leading the implementation of the East Africa Leadership Journeys and other training modalities. Through facilitated discussions, mentoring, coaching, and hands-on exercises, the Leadership Journey imparts contextualized tools and frameworks to address the individual, organizational, and societal challenges that women leaders in health face today. The inaugural East Africa Leadership Journey kicked off in May 2022 and will scale up to 3 cohorts of 30 women each year by 2025 and up to 4 cohorts a year by 2026. The East Africa Hub will also be taking on additional training modalities for broader audiences.

The Program Lead is a self-starter, a self-driven learner, and relishes co-creating with a cross-cultural team. They must possess strong written and oral communication skills, have a keen eye for detail, organization, and multi-tasking, and enjoy building, implementing, and refining complex processes and systems. The Program Lead should possess a strategic mindset to proactively anticipate opportunities and challenges for strengthening existing programs and preparing for scale. The Program Lead should be observant, emotionally intelligent, cross-culturally competent, possess astute judgment, and exceptional people, project, and relationship management skills. They bring robust public and/or global health experience, knowledge, and networks to the position. They value human connection and are strongly aligned with WomenLift Health Mission, Vision, Culture, and Values.

This recruitment is for 1 full-time (100% FTE) position and will report to the East Africa Program Director.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

In collaboration with the Eastern Africa Hub Team, successfully implement the annual East-Africa-based Leadership Journeys and other training modalities. This includes:

• Key Leadership Journey Operations
  • Lead the end-to-end implementation and scale-up of the year-long East Africa-based Leadership Journeys and development of other customized training modalities for broader audiences.
  • Finalize implementation plans including Leadership Journey (LJ) calendars, work plans, and tracking key milestones.
  • Lead cohort selection, assembly, and onboarding process including all activities from application launch to onboarding and co-facilitating cohort orientation.
  • Lead the hub team to finalize the implementation plan and delivery of 2 in-person residencies per cohort for each year-long Journey – an initial 3 to 4-day in-person "Immersion" residency and a closing 2-day in-person “Lift-Off” residency. (These in-person residencies will be held in rotating East African locations that may require travel.)
  • Lead end-to-end implementation of LJ virtual touchpoint's including learning touchpoints, mentoring, coaching, JourneyPlus, and PowerUp Workshops - or any other engagements for broader audiences.
  • Lead the use and maintenance of contextualized tools for managing and tracking key milestones, deliverables, and budget according to the established program timeline for the hub.
  • Refine and manage systems to track, support, evaluate, and find synergies between cohort members’ Leadership Projects (LPs).
  • Bring relevant public and/or global health knowledge/experience to leadership project support during office hours; Contribute to the thought leadership of cohort members by staying up to date with key shifts, priorities, and trends in the public and global health domain.
  • Moderate and/or facilitate select regional events when needed (interview panels or events that do not require leadership skills expertise)
  • Lead program monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) efforts for the East Africa Hub in collaboration with the MEL Lead and partner (BIXAL) by reviewing, and refining core metrics of the Leadership Journey; Promote value of MEL with the cohort to ensure completion of all survey instruments and use findings to strengthen the Leadership Journey overtime.
  • Collaborate with WomenLift Health communications teammates to develop messaging and materials for Leadership Journeys and other training modalities.
  • Collaborate closely with communications teammates to amplify the visibility of women leaders in cohorts by identifying impactful speakers, stories, and Leadership Projects across cohorts; Contribute to the narrative that investing in women's leadership advances health impact through the development of blogs and other thought pieces.  
  • Share learnings and best practices on Leadership Journey implementation systems with cross-regional team.
  • Actively contribute to and/or facilitate cross-regional ideation, brainstorming in the creation of new systems, processes, and modalities for the LJ.
  • Create and iterate on region-specific best practices for quality assurance, process improvements, and leveraging technology.
• Institutional Influence
  • Contribute to the development and implementation of institutional influence engagements based in East Africa in close partnership with the Leadership Development Functional team.  
  • Strengthen WomenLift Health's institutional network with the aim of amplifying visibility opportunities for cohort members and their Leadership Projects or more.
• Team and Relationship Management
  • Manage direct reports, support their needs, and strengthen their contribution by actively training them to take on more ownership and responsibility for tasks.
  • Build and maintain relationships with Leadership Journey stakeholders (and recruit as needed) including selection committee members, facilitators, mentors, coaches, leadership project reviewers, guest speakers, and core delivery partners.   
  • Lead and/or actively contribute to cross-functional learning and sharing within the region and identify opportunities and challenges to surface cross-regionally.
  • Intentionally build and maintain relationships with cohort members from the onset of the Leadership Journey by holding 1:1 office hours and proactively responding to their needs throughout the Leadership Journey.
  • Create a safe and trusted space for engagement with cohort members and role model the competencies being developed in the Leadership Journey.

IDEAL CANDIDATE

Education & Experience (Required):

• Master’s degree in a related field
• Minimum 12 years of work experience with at least 5+ years working in public or global health.
• Demonstrated track record of program and people management skills
• Demonstrated track record of independently adapting and establishing processes, systems, and tools to implement capacity-building programs.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (Required):

• Commitment to WomenLift Health’s Mission, Vision, Culture, Values, Theory of Change, and unique positioning in the field
• Proven ability to collaborate and co-create within and across teams, clients, and external stakeholders
• Excellent spoken and written communication skills in English
• Depth of experience, maturity, confidence, gravitas, ability to learn and adapt, and give and receive feedback, befitting a Program Lead
• Advanced computer skills and demonstrated experience in using MS office suite including spreadsheets, web-based applications such as email, social media, videoconferencing, program and task management applications, and ease in learning new programs
• Demonstrated success in following through and successfully completing projects in a timely manner
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
• Ability to prioritize, multi-task, and assign work to others
• Ability to take initiative and ownership of projects
• Ability to routinely and independently exercise sound judgment with minimal supervision
• Ability to exercise cultural competency and work respectfully with a diverse team across varied cultures, geographies, and time zones
• Proven ability to manage teams
• Strong strategic management skills, and forward-thinking ability

Education & Experience (Preferred):

• Women’s Leadership, Gender Equality, and/or experience, particularly in an East Africa context, is a plus
• Knowledge of digital & online learning modalities is a plus
• Additional language preferred, but not required

HOW TO APPLY 

Please see career page of WomenLift Health, select the appropriate position, and fill out an application form for the role you are interested in. As part of the application packet, you will be asked to submit a) your resume, b) a cover letter detailing why you are interested and a good fit for the role, and c) a list of three references. 

Hiring Statement

WomenLift Health is a project of New Venture Fund (NVF), a 501(c)(3) public charity that incubates new and innovative public-interest projects and grant-making programs. NVF is committed to attracting, developing, and retaining exceptional people, and to creating a work environment that is dynamic, rewarding and enables each of us to realize our potential. NVF’s work environment is safe and open to all employees and partners, respecting the full spectrum of race, color, religious creed, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, political affiliation, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, and all other classifications protected by law in the locality and/or state in which you are working.

WomenLift Health intends to hire the selected candidate via BDO Kenya, our PEO (Professional Employer Organization) partner in Kenya.  Candidate must live and be authorized to work in Kenya.