Regional Head of Higher Education Programs SSA at British Council

About the job

Lead the development and delivery of the SSA portfolio of Higher Education programmes, including complex or large multi-country grant- or partner co-funded programmes. This post will lead programmes/projects to a high standard and in compliance with British Council policies and procedures. Acts as Senior Responsible Officer if required on programmes with an appropriate level of complexity and will manage large and geographically dispersed programme delivery teams. The Head of Higher Education Programmes will focus on supporting the delivery of the outcomes of our work in Higher Education through a suite of global programmes and partnerships including:

• Going Global Partnerships
• Alumni UK
• International Student Marketing and Mobility

Main accountabilities but not limited to the following:

Leadership & Management

• Could act as SRO on programmes or projects with some complexity and ambiguity.
• Leads large, diverse, and geographically dispersed teams.
• Builds capacity and capability in programme management in delivery teams.
• Champions EDI within the programme and empowers team members to effectively. identify opportunities for mainstreaming EDI in the programme delivery.

Relationship & Stakeholders

• Responsible for relationships with partners/funders clients and internal stakeholders at a programme/project level.
• Holds delivery partners, team members and consultants to account including through effective supply chain management.
• Communicates on a variety of platforms about the programme or project.

Business Development

• Work closely with SSA HE Director HE to further develop ODA-funded global programmes in HE in the SSA region building on the Innovation African Universities (IAU) programme as part of Going Global.
• Contributes to proposals and bid documents as required, including partnership work in HE.
• Understands the market in which our programmes operate, plays a proactive role in co-ordination with other organisations/funders, spots opportunities and shares. intelligence about the market through appropriate channels

Commercial and Financial Management

• Monitors and reports on CPM through project life cycle.
• Ensures sound internal/external financial management, planning and reporting is in place, applies British Council and the funding partner’s financial requirements effectively and ensures financial standards are met.
• Oversight of Client invoicing process (if contract).
• Ensure effective management of project profit and loss accounts to achieve income and expenditure targets and to maintain a positive cashflow.

Programme Management

• Ensures that programme/project is delivered according to all corporate (and where relevant, client) standards of quality and compliance (for example safeguarding, EDI, supply change management, social value, and conflict sensitivity).
• Work with multiple colleagues to support design of results-based and impact-driven programmes and is responsible for planning and re-design as required.
• Responsibility for managing all contractual obligations on programme or project.
• Convenes risk meetings, updates risk register and either mitigates or escalates risk.

Role specific knowledge and minimum requirements:

• Project management or equivalent qualification
• Extensive experience of leading and managing programmes or large projects.
• Experience of managing multi country or large programmes or large that have met project closure standards and passed audits.
• Experience of working with several different funding sources and knowledge of different programme frameworks and compliance rules
• Experience of working within a consortium arrangement or with other funding partners or sponsors and management of associated contracts
• Extensive experience of managing complex, senior, client, stakeholder and partner relationships and reporting requirements.
• Experience of identifying risk, mitigating risk, and monitoring risk and reporting risk through appropriate channels.
• Experience of developing MEL frameworks and designing data collection mechanisms
• Experience of leading a large, diverse, dispersed project or programme team
• Experience of presenting and communicating programme success to a range of external audiences