Vice President - Research & Innovation at Busara Center for Behavioral Economics

About the role

Vice Presidents are the senior most leaders at Busara and are responsible for setting the overall strategy, vision and direction for the areas that they oversee. Vice Presidents have a bold and creative vision for Busara and carve out new pathways for both sustainability and growth for the organization. They also serve as the organization’s communicators and translators, advocating for, building partnerships for, and representing Busara within the larger development and researcher communities.

The Vice President for Research & Innovation is responsible for setting the direction for our academic research and scientific agenda. Specifically, they will manage both our Lab Team – which is responsible for conducting rigorous academic research with partners around the globe, and our CREME team, which is our internal science team which manages our internal research agenda. 

Your responsibilities will be to:

• Develop and direct the vision and strategic implementation plan for Busara’s scientific identity to place us as a partner to the academic and scientific world.

• Amplify our voice on substantive, theoretical and topical research areas through:

• Purposeful grant development and project selection that is strategic and forward thinking in order to build and maintain a financially sustainable portfolio of experimental behavioral science research to meet revenue and sales targets;

• Improved partnership models and new collaboration opportunities with local and international academics and research institutions;

• Placing our learnings in the broader research and scientific discourse and communicating these internally and externally;

• Networking and convening academic and practitioner partners, funders and peer organizations;

• Deepen and cultivate relationships with research institutions, funders, government and other actors within the behavioral science research community.

• Oversee the design and execution of our Lab and CREME research portfolios and dissemination activities to ensure technical quality, help facilitate improved market offerings, and new revenue sources.

• Coordinate with Vice Presidents and Directors from other divisions to mainstream academic research, and best practice throughout the organization.

• Manage, motivate, and coach a team of Research Leads across R&I verticals.

To do this well, you should:

Your formal background, frankly, is not a criteria. We don’t evaluate what school you went to, who you know, or where you previously worked.  These experiences can certainly help you, but what really matters is that you have the skills, the knowledge and the passion to lead this portfolio. Show us what you can do.   

But, if you’re looking for guidelines on whether this is the right level of seniority for you, we’ve learned that it’s useful to offer some benchmarks for comparison. 

• Be a visionary leader who is passionate about Busara’s mission and work and wants to amplify their own work through Busara

• Have proven capability in building collaborations with scientific and academic institutions. Experience with collaborations in the Global South is a plus.

• Demonstrate track record of securing research (scientific and applied) funding to support a large team ($1M or more). Demonstrated ability to help others secure funding is a plus.

• Be an excellent communicator with experience conveying complex scientific topics in easy to digest ways, through writing, speaking and presenting

• Have ample experience working in diverse environments with scientists and practitioners alike, understanding a wide variety of perspectives to achieve a goal.

• Have an established research record (including publications, presentations and service to the scientific community) specifically within behavioral science or related fields.

• Be a strong motivator, listener and enabler of other senior leaders

• Have managed teams of 10+ people before.

• Have lived and worked in the Global South, and be willing to move to one of our office locations in Kenya, India or Nigeria.

You should have approximately this level of expertise, regardless of where it comes from:

• The scientific expertise that often comes from a Master’s degree or Ph.D. in Economics, Social Sciences, Public Policy, or related fields.

• The hard-won lessons and self-awareness that usually comes from at least 10 years of  work experience.