LTE Senior Program Officer - Africa, Adolescents & Social Norms at Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation

Your Role

• The Senior Program Officer (SPO), Adolescents & Social Norms will be passionate about developing, cultivating and maintaining a portfolio of investments within a broader team to increase cultural salience of gender equality. Primarily through mass media partnerships, improving data on social norms, and developing champions of gender equality, your work will accelerate progress towards a healthy and productive life for adolescent girls.
• You will strategically lead grants, contracts and serve as a key advisor on strategy. You will also build partnerships internally and externally that advance positive social norms on gender equality and can serve as platform for advancing other normative program areas for the foundation. 
• This role will be the team’s point person in sub-Saharan Africa where our work is initially focused on partnerships in Nigeria and Kenya. The role will require building partners and relationships in the creative and entertainment communities in both countries and will require significant time in both places.  
• The successful member of this team is solutions minded, agile in ambiguous environments, a natural relationship and partnership builder, with a willingness to learn, acknowledge failure, and shift strategies as the portfolio and knowledge base grows.

What You’ll Do

• Cultivate and handle a portfolio of investments in Nigeria and Kenya focused on mass media, marketing, program, and community organizing to improve social norms on gender equality and reduce barriers to adolescents pathway to a productive and healthy life. 
• Develop strategies and partnerships with mass media companies, community groups, and champions in Nigeria and Kenya to improve social norms and dismantle barriers to progress on gender equality. 
• Contribute to the development of a multi-national measurement and evaluation framework for assessing political salience, attitudes and behaviors, norms, and outcomes on gender equality based on findings from grantees and partners within the portfolio of investments 
• Participate in a community of practice to engage leaders across the foundation interested in influencing social norms and behavior in their program areas. 
• Assemble and share evidence and findings to contribute to the team and our foundation’s learning agenda and journey.  
• Collaborate efficiently with different partners including internally at the foundation and diverse external partners (community leaders, governments, multi-laterals, private sector, etc.). Serve as key link between the sector and foundation. 
• Represent the foundation to key external constituencies, including building new relationships and connections in the mass media space and community and with research and evaluation partners. 
• Support cross-team data and information sharing.

Your Experience

• Advanced degree preferred with 10+ years of experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience. 

Other Attributes

• Expertise in the social norms, marketing, entertainment media, or behavior science spaces. 
• Knowledge of adolescent and youth development approaches. 
• Familiarity with Nigeria and Kenya media landscape, knowledge of mass media frameworks, and some historical knowledge of media and communication approaches to social normative issues. 
• Experience forming partnerships in the entertainment and media industries.  
• Knowledge of and desire to engage in the data and measurement that evaluate and inform behavior science and social norms. 
• Experience with communications, including an ability to source and amplify voices of leaders, partners; creative storytelling; and background in media communications/networks in priority geographies. 
• Ease of collaboration in a wide range of internal and external cultural, geographic, and operational situations, demonstrating culturally sensitive behavior with a diverse range of people and team settings.  
• Strong listening, verbal, and written communication skills; ability to calibrate input and synthesize information to connect with diverse audiences.  
• Motivated to “roll up sleeves” to implement and deliver on commitments as a self-starter.