Deputy Director – Immunization and Disease Control at Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation

The Deputy Director – Immunization and Disease Control, Nigeria (“Deputy Director”) will lead the development and implementation of the Nigeria team’s strategies on Immunization, Resiliency of azithromycin for children (“REACH”), Malaria and other infectious diseases and work collaboratively with programmatic, functional, and cross-division partners across the foundation to develop and lead a portfolio of grants at the country, regional and global level to achieve results. The focus of the Nigeria team is to enable the work of foundation teams that are involved in the development, testing and scale-up of high impact and cost-effective solutions, including in health and nutrition, to achieve sustained impact at scale across Nigeria. The Deputy Director will ensure alignment with the foundation’s work in Nigeria on Immunization, REACH, Malaria and other diseases. The Deputy Director will also supervise staff placed in the Nigeria Country Office to drive these program strategies.

The role will report to the Director, Nigeria Country Office.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the development and implementation of key health program strategies for the Nigeria team, focused on Immunization, REACH, Malaria and other infectious diseases, in partnership with the Africa office teams as well as Seattle-based health teams across the Global Development, Gender Equality and Global Health divisions.
• Provide leadership and people management for roles that support this role’s portfolio.
• Facilitate development of annual investment plans and budgets, develop, modify, and implement strategy under the overall leadership of the Director, Nigeria. Work with foundation leadership as requested to address cross-cutting issues and improve functions and performance.
• In partnership with other Deputy Directors and relevant program officers in charge of country impact at the foundation, design and oversee the implementation of integrated strategies to accelerate the achievement of joint (foundation and others) health and nutrition goals along with scaling partners in Nigeria.
• Provide guidance and input into the foundation’s health program and function strategies, investments, and an advocacy agenda that will lead to improvements and impact in key health and development indicators across the continent.
• Identify, negotiate, implement and/or lead complex, performance-based contracts/grants to accelerate increase in health outcomes. This includes development and review of MoUs, letters of interest and grant proposals and summaries of progress.
• Lead partnerships and grantee relationships to ensure learning and impact, for example, by conducting site visits, convening meetings of key partners, monitoring and evaluating components of grants.
• Participate in the coordination of partnerships with global organizations such as GAVI, Global Fund, UNICEF and WHO among others.
• Identify and assess key health, innovation and scientific portfolio risks, and develop and lead mitigation/contingency plans at the portfolio level.
• Effectively lead people and be responsible for hiring the talent needed to achieve foundation goals, ensuring successful employee onboarding, communicating performance expectations, creating goal alignment, integrating project and change management, giving and seeking feedback, providing coaching, measuring progress, and holding people accountable, supporting employee development, and recognizing achievement and lessons learned.
• Ensure high quality interactions and clear and consistent communications with government officials, foundation staff, leadership, grantees, and partners.
• Serve as a member of Nigeria leadership team contributing to the office culture and overall strategy.
• Ability to travel frequently domestically and internationally, up to 50%.

Your Experience

• The ideal candidate will preferably hold an advanced degree in medicine, public health, health economics, public policy, or similar fields (e.g., MSPH, MHA, MPH, MD, PhD). Certification in epidemiology will be an advantage.
• 12+ years of proven experience in public health with a focus on immunization, infectious disease research, innovation, modeling, and eradication strategies. The candidate should also understand the global health and international development environment; and have experience working in and living in Africa, on health-related work.

Key competencies

• Technical expertise - in-depth experience in public health with experience of integration across disease areas and in health and other interventions.
• Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared/joint objectives, both internally and externally. Ability to orchestrate effective decisions across a broad range of issues and partners, assess progress, analyze gaps, and make necessary changes.
• Strategic thinking - seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into strategies, concrete theories of change and actions. Ability to think/act like an investor and a creative problem solver. Innovative and open-minded approach; ability to question and challenge colleagues including managers and partners in a constructive manner.
• Leads complexity and ambiguity effectively: Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems – especially in managing relations. Demonstrated ability to work with flexibility, efficiency, and diplomacy in a complex, fast-paced environment both in country office and at headquarters.
• Communication skills - communicating in complex situations in a clear and concise manner with a broad and diverse audience.
• People management skills - managing teams of successful self-directed professionals and acting as a partner to team members managing specific portfolios.
• Inter-cultural competency - comfortable in a wide range of cultural, geographic, and operational situations, demonstrating culturally sensitive behavior with a diverse range of people; holds diverse international working experience.