Jobs at EdoBEST

About The Role

• As the Director, Policy & Partnerships, you oversee an entire program’s large-scale, government-led, system-wide education transformation within all new locations.
• You are responsible for building and managing diverse stakeholder relationships, and focussed on account management and sustaining our work and operations in the territory.
• You own the government engagement with the diverse stakeholders and the many moving parts involved in our work in the territory. You are the first point of call for any communication between the program, the Government and other key stakeholders in the territory.
• You’ll be taking over existing relationships from the Policy and Partnerships Programme Development team and other Executives, and make these your own to ensure close collaboration and on-time execution of the program. This entails significant relationship management, as well as project management in ensuring data and approvals needed to pass between the government and program do so in a timely way for program deadlines.
• You will ensure that the government partners understand the program, and support its implementation.
• This will require coordination of stakeholder sessions, government workshops, and government public events and celebrations.
• During government workshops, there will be a need for careful engagement and collaboration on programme details -- to be successful in this role, you must learn about all aspects of our programming, and what can be negotiated and what cannot to ensure we deliver on what the government requires of us -- improved learning outcomes. You will need to be diplomatic and have discretion; know when to speak and when to listen.

What You Will Do

• Report to the Managing Director, to help build partnerships, relationships and execute strategies to sustain our goals across the specific program.
• Work closely with the Programme Development counterparts and regional leadership, be responsible for overseeing key government relationships and programming. To do this, you’ll lead government engagement, training and stakeholder meetings.
• Ensure creation of governance committees according to core programming guidelines, and establish a regular meeting schedule.
• Ensure thorough weekly and monthly reporting to the government begins and is continued under permanent programme leadership.
• Manage and oversee all Policy and Partnerships program staff (focussed on Programme Management).
• Manage the diverse strategic stakeholder management across multiple Government departments and levels within those departments; with prominent education ecosystem stakeholders, including but not limited to the local and national teacher labour unions; and important 'influencers’ to ensure the successful and popular launch of the government’s new programme.
• Establish and implement short- and long-range goals, objectives, policies and operating procedures for the government relations support function; monitor and evaluates program effectiveness; effects changes required for improvement;
• Map all key government officials, and create a plan for management of each;
• Work with key stakeholders on consultative efforts to drive reforms in delivery of education to underserved communities;
• Utilize lead management techniques and maintain a detailed and dynamic database of these key influencer communities while tracking progress of programme launch;

What You Should Have

• Bachelor's Degree with superior academic performance;
• Over 4 years’ experience in government program delivery or working in account management or as an engagement manager;
• In depth experience building and systematically managing key complex relationships and accounts to ensure program delivery in a complex, multi-stakeholder program or project;
• Previous experience working with a Ministry of Education on program delivery, preferred; If not within education, experience with another government delivery program or project, such as in health or ICT;
• Confidence, authority, and level-headed decision making needed as the leadership voice for the program;
• Knowledge of local, state and federal government issues related to the provision of primary education in the country would be preferred;
• Ability to balance commercial interests and social benefits - a blend across business and political acumen, but also high emotional intelligence and relationship-building skills;
• Experience acting as an on-the-record spokesperson;
• Highly capable and thoughtful problem-solving skills; able to act as an intermediary and a solutions driven lead, to ensure effective collaboration and communication between the Government client and our organization;
• Prior experience within a fast-paced, high-growth, metric-driven operational organization will be an advantage;

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.

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Description
The Partnerships Launch Group:

• Partnerships Launch brings the majority of our extensive breadth of technical expertise to ensure large scale transformation of education systems into one team. This team kick-starts new programs in new countries. This includes putting all relevant policies, practices, systems and technology in place, and leading the hiring of the leader who will take charge of this work as the permanent lead for this body of work.
• This is NewGlobe’s SWAT team, with specialists brought together to solve the critical and urgent problem of launching a state or nation-wide new program. This team must work collaboratively, thrive in creating order out of chaos, and understand that proactive problem solving is a daily task.
• All members of this team should expect extensive travel to remote and underserved areas, and to be resident in 2 other locations per year, setting up new programs.
• When not deployed on starting a specific program, each team member will do work with the core technical team which he or she represents, to support special projects, deepen technical knowledge, and otherwise advance in the field.
• This team is critical to NewGlobe delivering on our shared vision of transforming the lives of 10,000,000+ children, and in so doing seeing peace and prosperity where we work.

Technology Group:

• Technology plays a critical role enabling us to provide transformative education at massive scale in highly resource constrained environments.
• This is one of the key elements that gives us the ability to deliver radically impactful programmes, creating brighter futures for a generation of children across the world each day. Technology spans several key functions, including product management, business intelligence, software development and IT operations. 
• Working with us, passionate technologists have a chance to directly change the world.

About the Role

• Technology at NewGlobe is a highly complex, vertically-integrated affair, with systems supporting an ever expanding range of functions and countries, and crossing between software development, business intelligence, IT operations, and logistics/supply chain.
• At the same time, our teams run lean and things change fast – governments make policy decisions that affect us, launching new territories is a frenetic affair, and we still need to evolve our core technology offering.
• This role is about ensuring that NewGlobe’s investments in technology translate into rapid and reliable launches, appropriately localised offerings, and sustainable at-scale operations.
• To achieve that, it will require deep knowledge of the existing NewGlobe tools and processes, an exceptional ability to collaborate, listen, and communicate, and a passion for continuous improvement.
• Above all else, this role is about being a technologist who can be a fast-moving and utterly resilient problem solver, while simultaneously being obsessed with ensuring the scale and sustainability of our operations.
• When deployed as part of a new launch, this person will be on-ground as the Technology representative in the cross-functional New Opportunities team, adapting and deploying the existing set of tools and processes and infrastructure to the local context, hiring and training the future IT Operations team, and generally doing whatever is necessary.
• To achieve that goal, this person will be supported by and oversee a small globally distributed technology team assigned to the launch, including staff from both software development and IT Operations. But it will also mean rolling up sleeves, doing systems administration, installing software, working with local vendors, and whatever else is necessary to make the technology go.
• When not participating in a new launch, this person will be catching up on the latest developments within the Technology group and working to make the next launch better, faster, cheaper.
• This person will report to the Vice President of New Opportunities, with a functional reporting line to the CTO.
• This person will also be a member of the core Technology Leadership team, alongside the Vice President of Software Development, the Vice President of IT Operations, and the Director of Product Management.

What You Will Do

• Hire and on-board the IT Operations manager and team (up to 10+) who will take over IT Operations post-launch
• Support academics and leadership and development teams to provide tech support for teacher trainings for up to 5,000 teachers in first 3 months in-country
• Manage the local hardware and infrastructure setup, under the oversight of the Vice President of IT Operations and with the assistance of the shared service IT Infrastructure Manager, to ensure that support office infrastructure (internet, PBX, firewalls, domain controllers, etc.), IT assets (smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc.), and tech consumables (software licences, airtime, etc.) are procured and available in a way that is timely, cost-effective, and consistent with established NewGlobe standards.
• Build awareness and perform training around the existing technology toolset for the local teams and government partners, including new products or functionality that might not have existed in prior launches.
• Ensure the right balance between standardisation (including pushing back on local teams to adopt) and localisation (including pushing back on shared services teams to adapt)
• Oversee the technology shared services teams assigned to a launch, including prioritisation of issues for resolution, necessary customisations, and the coordination of associated timelines and releases. Major changes to software systems to be overseen by the Vice President of Software Development.
• Act as the single point of contact on ground for Technology during a launch, meaning communicating a clear and complete picture back to the Technology Leadership teams and also communicating information back from those teams to the local teams
• Between launches, work with other technology departments and functions to improve future launches, including refining the Technology Playbook and iterating on the Launch Workplan.
• Advocate relentlessly for - and personally embrace - the use of data and reports to drive facts-based and at-scale decision making
• Prevent shadow systems and misinformation from becoming embedded.

What You Should Have

• Candidates should possess a Bachelor's Degree with strong academic performance
• 7+ years relevant IT/industry work experience
• Experience of living and/or working in emerging markets, including rural and remote communities
• Experience deploying and overseeing technology in low infrastructure and physically remote environments - limited or unreliable access to power, limited or unreliable access to network, difficult or slow to reach in person, and often using low spec hardware.
  • Experience that includes mobile applications and enterprise mobility management are a big plus.
• Experience working across multiple teams and departments, especially in a globally distributed and matrixed organisation.
• Strong project management skills, especially with both lean processes that are designed to work in rapidly changing environments and also with more formal structures designed for complex and well-defined projects
• Understanding of networking infrastructure (routers, switches, firewalls, domain controllers) and the associated setup and configuration
• Competency with other types of systems administration tasks, esp. Linux-based systems, such as PBXs, LAMP-stack OSS, etc.
• Familiarity with ITIL, Information Security, and Identity Management best practices.
• Experience participating in modern software development and continuous delivery processes, including automated deployment pipelines, microservice APIs, frequent releases, and fast feedback
• Proficiency in the use of monitoring tools to oversee systems at a distance and at scale (and to reduce mean time to response)
• Exceptional listening, communication, and collaboration skills.

You’re also:

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organised 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 startup or other rapid-growth company
• 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 analyse 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.