Regional Director, Academics at NewGlobe

About The Role

• The Regional Academic Director is responsible for educational outcomes across schools in the multiple territories of Group Nigeria, via her or his co-management and functional support of Academic Directors. The Regional Academic Director is the glue between each Academic Director’s territory and what is known as “Shared Services.” Academics Shared Services is the team that is responsible for all the content creation that runs in each territory.
• This is a managerial role reporting to the Group Managing Director (Nigeria) as well as the Vice President, Academics (Global Shared Services). The Regional Academic Director is the dotted line manager to Academic Directors in each territory across Group Nigeria; while Managing Directors of those individual territories are solid line managers to their respective Academic Directors.
• The Regional Academic Director works with Managing Directors in each territory to ensure that all Academic Directors have a clear and focused work plan. This includes ensuring that each territory has an up-to-date Academic Plan for each academic year, setting quarterly goals for the Academic Director to execute the Academic Plan, and holding Academic Directors accountable in achieving their goals.
• The Regional Academic Director, in collaboration with the Managing Director, also ensures that Academic Directors and their counterpart Schools Directors effectively advocate for the academic programme of work in their territory. This includes ensuring that academic outcomes are a central part of all conversations around school support and operations. In the case of government partnerships, this also includes working directly with government stakeholders in Ministries of Education or State Boards of Education. The Regional Academic Director supports Academic Directors to collect relevant input, engage in continuous dialogue, and generate buy-in for core elements of the academic programme.
• Finally, the Regional Academic Director ensures that there is strong coordination and clear communication between each territory and Shared Services regarding academic programming. She or he facilitates processes and conversation necessary for smooth execution of each territory’s academic program to happen within a large matrix organization.

This facilitation should ensure that:

• all levers of achievement are robust and contextualized for the territory
• all schools have the right operational conditions for learning to take place
• data is foundational to advocacy and engagement while supporting governments to gain insights and clarity

What you will do

• Ensure that Academic Directors have a clear and focused work plan oriented around the Academic Plan. These Academic Plans must be created, reviewed, and approved before the launch of each academic year - the Regional Academic Director must make certain that Academic Directors are delivering on this every year
• Manage Academic Directors to ensure that the academic programmes within the Academic Plan are high-value and will lead to outsized learning gains, but also that these programmes fit within the broader organisational context in the territory
• Support Academic Directors to become owners of the academic programmes in their territories. This includes providing training on core principles and systems, and also coaching on effective troubleshooting and ongoing management systems
• Empower Academic Directors to become persuasive advocates for their academic programmes, including in internal conversations and also with external government partners
• Facilitate strong coordination and communication between each territory’s Academic Director and Shared Services
• Ensure that Academic Plans are managed using standardised systems across territories, even though those Academic Plans themselves are contextualised and unique to each territory
• Ensure that Academic Directors thoroughly review and provide input on all new content in their programme; this review and input process should be informed by the Academic Director’s expertise, which the Regional Academic Director will cultivate
• Help Academic Directors to manage urgent or high stakes requests that require additional resources or expertise
• Establish and guide additional streams of work with an Academic Director’s portfolio, including high-priority initiatives like strengthening pupils’ post-primary readiness and facilitating more effective transitions to secondary school.

What you should have

• The Regional Academic Director must be a data-driven individual with experience developing and managing cultures of high performance and high expectations. You must be a great academic leader who understands exceptional instruction and can motivate and support others in realizing a vision of academic excellence. Ideal candidates have worked in organizations with a proven track record of generating large learning gains.

In addition, the Regional Academic Director must:

• Be a self-starter and problem-solver, who thinks three and four steps ahead.
• Be hard working and collaborative, with the tenacity to persevere and an appreciation for the role of teamwork in achieving a shared vision.
• Be a fast learner and someone who is able to flourish in fast paced, dynamic, and sometimes ambiguous environments
• Be both detailed and results-oriented, driven by the data that will allow us to know what is working and what isn’t working for kids
• Have strong project management skills and excellent organizational skills, with keen attention to detail, the ability to follow up systematically on a broad set of initiatives, and the ability to empower team members to take ownership over programmes of work
• Be an effective, articulate communicator who can represent NewGlobe to external audiences, including government partners
• Be humble and ready to “roll up your sleeves” to get things done

Education and Qualification:

• Bachelor’s degree in Education or related field; graduate degrees preferred
• At least 8-10 years of experience working in education
• Experience working in education consulting
• Experience managing a team of 5 or more direct reports

You’re also

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
• A networking mastermind – You excel at meeting new people and turning them into advocates. You communicate in a clear, conscientious, and effective way in both written and oral speech. You can influence strangers in the course of a single conversation. Allies and colleagues will go to bat for your ideas. You have an existing network from prior experience in the country, preferably in the regulatory, education, or business sectors.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, NewGlobe works in often fragile, sometimes volatile low-resource communities and with complex government systems. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.
• A relentless advocate –The children we serve and teachers we empower never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their benefit, experience, and value.
• A malleable learner –You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.
• A data-driven decision-maker – When making decisions, you don’t rely on your intuition alone. You collect data, you analyze it and make decisions with clear justifications.
• A curious investigator – You ask why a lot. You don’t just take what you see and accept it. You wonder why it is that way, and are aware that the world we see is created by human choices and actions – and it could be different. You wonder, and see the world as wonderful even when you want to change a part of it that is unjust.