Country Director at SNV

Job Summary

We are currently recruiting for a Country Director Nigeria:

• Contract: National contract – initial two‑year assignment with the possibility of extension
• Location: Abuja, with frequent travel to Lagos

Position overview

• The Country Director leads and enables the country programs through their teams and local implementation partners, focusing on upscaling and strengthening our country position with an ambitious strategy, ensuring high‑quality delivery of operations, and securing adequate funding to sustain and grow opportunities to deliver impact. In this role, you are the face of SNV in the country, ensuring a positive image and strong visibility. You will report to the Deputy Director of Country Programmes.
• Your core assignment is to expand our network and funding opportunities by building strong relationships with embassies, donors, institutions, and the private sector, while providing clear leadership to a small team of about ten staff. You remain well informed about national and international development priorities and steer sectors and themes in response to these priorities.
• Success in this role means growing SNV’s visibility, forging new partnerships and alliances with key national and international actors, stimulating collaboration for impact, and enabling teams to perform confidently and effectively. We are looking for a strategic, externally focused leader with strong negotiation skills, proven business development experience, and the ability to represent SNV at senior levels while frequently traveling between Abuja and Laos to build private‑sector engagement.

In this role you will also be responsible for the following tasks:

• Strategic leadership of the country and future programmes. Providing innovative leadership and encouraging people to take an active role in programme design and proposal development and ensuring quality and implementation in line with the strategic directions within the annual Plan and SNV’s global strategy;
• Strong and supportive people leadership enabling the country team: creating and nurturing an environment that supports high performance, continuous learning and teamwork at all levels;
• Representation and profiling: building partnerships and maintaining excellent relationships with donors, partners, local governments, businesses, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders;
• Oversight and quality assurance of project implementation (including project director roles) ensuring the delivery of impact to the satisfaction of key stakeholders and compliance with SNV’s and the donor’s financial standards and monitoring protocols;
• Business development to grow the country position and its programs, ensure financial sustainability of SNV and ensure a high-quality project design;
• Collaboration with other SNV countries to effectively exploit opportunities for synergy, deliver at scale (including multi-country projects), exchange knowledge and strengthen SNV’s position;
• In addition, the Country Director fosters innovation of SNV products and services: facilitates learning, documentation and evidence-based knowledge development in collaboration with SNV’s global team and partners; and ensures collaboration with renowned knowledge institutes and networks.

Qualifications
Your background

• The ideal candidate brings a minimum of five years of relevant leadership experience at a senior, end- responsible level in Nigeria. We expect you to be a strong people leader with an understanding and curiosity for diversity and inclusion. You thrive in an environment where evidence building is required, and you are not shy to share that passion to motivate others. You have experience in cooperation with governments and partners as well as donor relations, and actors in SNV’s three sectors and core thematic areas. You have proven track record in project management including familiarity with donor-funded project procedures and processes.
• You have strong business acumen accompanied by demonstrated business development experience on large tenders and grants from multilateral development agencies, banks and bilateral donors, but also a track-record in mobilising resources, including strong networking and positioning skills at multiple levels. You thrive in a complex multi-stakeholder environment, you have experience in fragile and conflict affected work environments, and you understand the sensitivity of the political economical context in Nigeria.
• You have a people-centric focus and can mobilise teams against strategy and can coach, lead, stimulate, and inspire professionals in a development context, ability to manage remote leadership dynamics. Proficiency in both written and spoken English is required.
• The ideal candidate brings a minimum of five years of relevant leadership experience at a senior, end‑responsible level in Nigeria and is a strong people leader with an understanding of and curiosity for diversity and inclusion. You thrive in an environment where evidence building is required and are not shy to share that passion to motivate others. You have experience working with governments, partners, and donor relations, as well as actors in SNV’s three sectors and core thematic areas and you bring a proven track record in project management, including familiarity with donor‑funded project procedures and processes.
• You have strong business acumen supported by demonstrated business development experience on large tenders and grants from multilateral development agencies, banks, and bilateral donors, together with a track record in mobilising resources and strong networking and positioning skills at multiple levels. You thrive in a complex multi‑stakeholder environment, have experience in fragile and conflict‑affected work settings, and understand the sensitivity of the political and economic context in Nigeria. You have a people‑centric focus, can mobilise teams around strategy, and can coach, lead, stimulate, and inspire professionals in a development context, including managing remote leadership dynamics. Proficiency in both written and spoken English is required.

What you bring

To be considered for this role, you bring:

• A Master’s degree in Project Management, Development Studies, or a related field.
• A minimum of five years of relevant senior, end‑responsible leadership experience in Nigeria, ideally within international development.
• A proven track record in securing competitive funding and managing project portfolios of approximately USD 10 million.
• Excellent communication, networking and presentation skills, with experience profiling and representing an organisation.
• Experience in strategy and policy development within an international organisation.
• Experience managing multidisciplinary and multicultural teams.
• Strong strategic thinking, planning, and organisational skills, with the ability to work effectively in partnership networks.
• A result‑oriented mindset and the ability to perform under pressure.

Additionally, we value:

• An entrepreneurial mindset with demonstrated private‑sector experience.
• Strong business development capacity, including experience with Public‑Private Partnerships.
• Working experience in coastal countries beyond Nigeria.