Jobs at Resolve to Save Lives

Position Purpose

• The Country Director is the senior-most representative and leader of Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) in Nigeria. The role serves as the principal steward of RTSL's affiliate, Resolve to Save Lives Nigeria LTD/GTE (RTSL Nigeria), which is part of the wider RTSL global network. This role is accountable for the organization's reputation, external relationships, integrated country portfolio, people leadership, operational performance, and legal and fiduciary responsibilities. 
• The Country Director serves as the bridge between RTSL's global initiatives and Nigeria's local context, ensuring that evidence-based approaches are adapted and implemented in ways that reflect country needs, government priorities, and operational realities. The role helps translate RTSL's technical expertise into locally relevant action, working in partnership with global program teams to ensure approaches are responsive to country priorities while generating learning that can inform RTSL's work globally. 
• The Country Director leads RTSL's Nigeria office, builds trusted partnerships with government and key stakeholders, develops a high-performing team, ensures strong governance and operational excellence, and helps capture and share lessons from implementation in Nigeria to inform learning and strengthen impact across RTSL's priority initiatives globally. 
• Success in this role is demonstrated through trusted partnerships, measurable public health impact, an integrated country portfolio, a strong organizational culture, effective stewardship of resources, and a respected long-term presence in Nigeria.

Core Responsibilities 
Country Strategy, Representation, and External Influence:

• Serve as RTSL's senior representative in Nigeria, building trusted and enduring relationships with federal and state government leaders, National Public Health Agencies, the RTSL Nigeria Board, donors, multilateral organizations, academic institutions, civil society organizations, and implementing partners.  
• Lead the implementation and periodic review of a coherent country strategy and annual priorities that align Nigeria's public health needs with RTSL's mission, global program strategies, funding commitments, and comparative advantage.  
• Position RTSL as a trusted, evidence-based advisor that provides timely strategic counsel while respecting country ownership and government leadership.  
• Protect and strengthen RTSL's reputation, credibility, and long-term legitimacy in Nigeria.  
• Monitor the external environment, identifying emerging opportunities, risks, and policy developments, and bring country insights into RTSL's global strategy and planning.  

Integrated Country Portfolio Leadership:

• Provide overall leadership for RTSL's Nigeria portfolio, ensuring that cardiovascular health, epidemic preparedness, primary health care, and future program areas operate as one coherent and mutually reinforcing country portfolio.  
• Partner closely with the Chief Program Officer, global program leaders, and Nigeria technical leaders to translate global strategies into contextually appropriate implementation while ensuring that country experience informs organizational learning and program evolution.  
• Promote coordination among government counterparts, implementing partners, sub-grantees, and RTSL global teams to maximize collective impact and reduce duplication.  
• Establish clear expectations for results and monitor progress against approved strategies, workplans, budgets, grants, and organizational objectives, leading timely course correction where necessary.  
• Support resource mobilization by contributing country strategy, implementation insights, results, risk analysis, and funding priorities to donor engagement, proposal development, and reporting.  

Governance, Operational, and Fiduciary Stewardship: 

• Serve as the principal management liaison to the RTSL Nigeria Board, ensuring effective governance, timely communication, and fulfillment of statutory responsibilities.  
• Hold delegated accountability for the legal, financial, operational, regulatory, fiduciary, reputational, and administrative stewardship of RTSL Nigeria.  
• Contribute to annual country planning and budgeting in collaboration with Nigeria and global teams.  
• Oversee financial performance, procurement, contracting, internal controls, compliance, audits, cash management, and stewardship of organizational assets.  
• Ensure the Nigeria office maintains fit-for-purpose operational systems, registrations, licenses, policies, insurance, records, and business continuity arrangements in partnership with Global Operations and Shared Services.  
• Serve as the accountable leader for staff safety, security, crisis management, and duty of care.  
• Exercise sound judgment within delegated authority while escalating matters with significant enterprise, legal, governance, financial, or reputational implications.  

People and Organizational Leadership:

• Lead, align, and develop a diverse, multidisciplinary Nigeria team, fostering an inclusive, respectful, and high-performing culture grounded in RTSL's values.  
• Establish clear expectations, accountability, coaching, delegation, and performance management practices that enable staff to perform at their highest potential.  
• Partner with HR and global leaders on workforce planning, recruitment, onboarding, succession planning, professional development, and employee relations.  
• Serve as a visible champion of RTSL’s culture and values, fostering a unified “One RTSL” mindset that emphasizes shared purpose, collaboration and mutual accountability across country and global teams.   
• Model calm, transparent, and values-based leadership during periods of organizational growth, ambiguity, public health emergencies, and change.  
• Create the conditions for effective collaboration across technical and operational teams while maintaining clarity of roles, responsibilities, and decision-making.  

Organizational Leadership:

• Serve as an active member of RTSL's Senior Leadership Team and Programs Senior Management Team, contributing enterprise thinking and organizational leadership beyond the Nigeria portfolio.  
• Bring country perspectives into organizational strategy while supporting collective executive decision-making and accountability.  
• Build strong working relationships across programs, Shared Services, Finance, HR, Legal, IT, Communications, Development, and the Office of the President to ensure organizational alignment.  
• Promote learning across RTSL by sharing successful approaches from Nigeria and adapting relevant innovations developed elsewhere.

Required Qualifications 
Education:

• Master's Degree or higher in Public Health, Medicine, Health Policy, Public Administration, International Development, Management, or another relevant discipline.  
• Additional executive leadership or management training is an advantage.  

Experience:

• Minimum of 15 years of progressively responsible leadership experience in global health, international development, public administration, or a related field.  
• At least 7 years in a senior leadership role with responsibility for organizational, country, or large program leadership.  
• Demonstrated experience leading complex, multidisciplinary organizations or country portfolios in Nigeria or comparable settings.  
• Extensive experience building trusted relationships with senior government leaders, Boards, donors, multilateral organizations, civil society, and other strategic partners.  
• Demonstrated experience translating organizational strategy into operational delivery while leading diverse technical and operational teams.  
• Experience overseeing organizational planning, budgeting, financial stewardship, operational management, compliance, and enterprise risk management.  
• Demonstrated success leading organizational growth, change, or transformation within complex, matrixed organizations.  
• Experience supporting resource mobilization, donor engagement, and strategic partnerships.  
• Experience working with or supporting governing boards is highly desirable.  

Leadership Profile 
The successful candidate will demonstrate: 

• Organization-First Mindset – Sees beyond individual programs and functions and makes decisions in the best interests of RTSL's mission, long-term impact, and organizational sustainability.  
• People leadership – Builds strong teams, develops others, delegates effectively, sets high expectations, addresses difficult issues constructively, and fosters an inclusive culture of accountability.  
• Stewardship – Exercises sound judgment and treats RTSL's reputation, people, resources, legal obligations, and donor funds with care and integrity.  
• Collaborative leadership – Works effectively across cultures, disciplines, reporting lines, and organizations while building trust and shared purpose.  
• Integrative leadership – Brings together multiple programs, teams, and perspectives into a coherent country portfolio without displacing technical ownership.  
• Resilience and adaptability – Remains calm, constructive, and decisive amid ambiguity, competing priorities, and change. 

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Position Purpose

• Despite decades of investment in public health surveillance infrastructure across Africa, a fundamental integration gap persists: data generated across disease programs, laboratory networks, emergency operations systems, and health facilities remains largely siloed. These systems were designed to serve individual programs, not to support the cross-cutting intelligence functions that effective epidemic preparedness and response require. When outbreaks emerge, the institutions responsible for detection and response are assembling a picture from fragmented, delayed, and inconsistent information — a structural limitation with direct consequences for decision-making speed and quality.  
• Resolve to Save Lives works with six African countries to address this through Collaborative Surveillance: an approach that helps national public health institutes (NPHIs) and ministries of health (MOH) to build the integrated systems, governance frameworks, and institutional practices required to bring multisectoral data together in support of timely, evidence-based decision-making.
• The countries engaged in this work are navigating complex existing digital architectures, competing institutional mandates, constrained domestic financing, and a rapidly evolving technology landscape — including the introduction of artificial intelligence tools that require careful, context-sensitive judgment to deploy responsibly.  
• The Surveillance and Digital Architecture and Governance workstream is the point at which the technical and institutional dimensions of Collaborative Surveillance converge. It spans data architecture and engineering, interoperability standards, data governance and policy, product design and management, and the change management required to ensure that integrated systems are adopted and sustained. This is not a technology implementation role. It is a leadership role for a professional who understands technology deeply enough to guide strategic decisions — and understands public health systems and institutional change well enough to recognize that technology alone is never sufficient.  
• We are seeking a Principal Advisor who brings demonstrated depth across both domains: a professional with direct experience supporting African governments through digital transformation, a working understanding of what it takes to build systems that endure beyond project cycles, and the credibility to engage as a peer with both senior government counterparts and technical specialists.
• The right candidate has led and developed teams, navigated complex multi-stakeholder environments, and exercised sound judgment under conditions of uncertainty.  
• This full-time, remote position is for a fixed term of 2 years, with the possibility of extension. 

Core Duties and Responsibilities

• This position reports to the Director of Epidemic Intelligence and manages a headquarters-based team with responsibilities for accompanying countries to bridge the gap between public health decision-making needs and the appropriate integrated data architecture.  

Workstream Vision and Leadership:

• Provide strategic direction for the Surveillance and Digital Architecture and Governance workstream, including articulating how RTSL's approach to data architecture fits within — and advances — the broader Collaborative Surveillance framework through supporting the design, adaptation, utilization, and integration of data systems with the aim of providing better intelligence for public health decision-making  
• Translate technical concepts into accessible language for diverse audiences: national public health leaders, donors, WHO counterparts, and non-technical program staff.  
• Represent the workstream externally in global technical forums, partnerships, and donor relationships.  
• Serve as a senior thought partner to the Director of Epidemic Intelligence on global strategy, emerging trends in digital health and AI, and stakeholder positioning within and across countries  
• Work collaboratively with other workstream leads to cohesively matrix responsibilities spanning between Data Use and Decision  Science, in-country implementation, and our leadership and governance support to national public health institutes and Ministries of Health  
• Identify emerging opportunities and risks in the digital health landscape — including developments in artificial intelligence — and advise on how these should shape RTSL's country support strategies.  

Team Management and Development:

• Manage and develop a team of staff, including diverse roles across solutions architecture, data engineering, product development, and informatics.  
• Foster a team culture of cross-disciplinary skills, grounded in a solutions-oriented and implementation focused approach — ensuring engineers and informatics staff (global and country-based) understand public health use cases, and can translate effectively public health use cases with appropriate technologies.  
• Build clear expectations, delegate with appropriate authority, and create conditions for team members to produce high-quality work without unnecessary bottlenecks.  
• Coach team members and country counterparts to develop skills in product thinking, systems design, and governance — not just technical execution.  

Country Strategy and In-Country Accompaniment:

• Provide direct advisory support (accompaniment) to national public health institutes and ministries in pathfinder countries as they navigate decisions about data architecture, digital transformation, and data governance based on public health decision-making priorities and needs.  
• Support the workstream staff members to work with country coordinators and government staff identify right solutions for their context — including when to build new systems, when to integrate existing ones, and how to establish governance structures that will sustain these investments. This work includes the need to balance political sensitivities and stakeholder management with technical approaches, including change management and demand generation  
• Inform and quality-assure country-level strategies for Collaborative Surveillance Data Architecture (CSDA), building on existing country digital health and surveillance architectures where they exist, while identifying priorities for integration, optimization, systems mapping, and capacity strengthening.  
• Support country-led efforts to address the governance implications of integrating data across disease programs and sectors, drawing on global standards, regional/country experience, and best practices to inform data-sharing policies, legal and regulatory frameworks, and institutional coordination mechanisms  
• Advise on the responsible and context-appropriate use of artificial intelligence in surveillance systems, including both opportunities and risks.  
• Support the development and implementation of a new curriculum for data architecture and engineering to provide scalable support to countries considering implementation of a digital platform supporting the implementation of Collaborative Surveillance. the Collaborative Surveillance Data Architecture (CSDA)  

Country and Cross-Workstream Coordination:

• Serve as a coordination and learning hub across RTSL supported countries, connecting learning and needs with tools and approaches and fostering cross-country experience sharing and knowledge generation    
• Collaborate with the Data Use and Decision Science workstream to ensure that technical architecture investments translate into actual improvements in how data is used for decisions; with data use cases informing the design and prioritization of system enhancements  
• Work with the Legal and Leadership, Governance, and Financing teams to ensure that data governance frameworks are actionable at the country level and aligned with broader institutional governance strategies.  

Product and Implementation Oversight:

• Apply product management, user-centered design, and software engineering principles to the workstream's technical outputs: setting priorities, managing iterative development, and ensuring that products are designed for and adopted by end users.  
• Oversee quality and coherence of digital implementation across countries, drawing on RTSL's implementation toolkit and adapting approaches to different country contexts.  
• Manage country-level program coordination responsibilities for at least one pathfinder country, including workplan management, contracting, and budget oversight.    
• Track and communicate progress on workstream deliverables, managing upward to RTSL leadership and outward to donors and partners.  

Required Qualifications
Education:  

• Advanced Degree in Health Informatics, Computer Science, Data Science, or a closely related field.  

Experience: 

• At least 12 years of experience at the intersection of digital health and public health in Africa, with demonstrated understanding of both the technical and institutional dimensions of health information systems
• Experience working directly with governments on implementation of digital transformation, surveillance system design, or health data governance.
• Experience in product design, product management or product leadership — defining and driving the development of digital tools or systems through iterative, user-centered processes.
• Demonstrated experience managing diverse teams, including direct supervision of technical staff.
• Experience with program management, budget management, and contracting in international development or global health contexts.

Skills & abilities: 

• Understanding of how artificial intelligence is being applied (and misapplied) in low- and middle-income country health systems, including practical judgment about when AI adds value and when it introduces risk. 
• Familiarity with integrated public health surveillance systems, including working knowledge of DHIS2 and integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) approaches.
• Familiarity with data architecture concepts — including data integration, interoperability, and data governance — sufficient to meaningfully guide strategy and challenge technical assumptions, without necessarily being an engineer.
• Strong leadership presence and interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to build trust with senior government counterparts, navigate institutional complexity, and represent RTSL credibly in global technical spaces.
• Fluency in English; proficiency in French or Portuguese is an asset.

Other: 

• Ability and willingness to travel up to 30%

Strongly Preferred Qualifications: 

• Familiarity with data governance frameworks and legal/policy dimensions of health data, including data sharing agreements and institutional governance for multi-sector data systems.  
• Experience applying and facilitating design thinking methodologies and Agile implementation approaches to co-design and co-develop solutions with government counterparts.
• Experience with change management in large institutional or government settings.
• Familiarity with emerging trends in global health financing for digital health and surveillance, and experience positioning technical programs with bilateral or multilateral donors. 

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Position Summary

• Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) seeks to engage a consultant to be embedded within the Office of the Honourable Minister of State for Health to support implementation, cross-ministerial coordination, policy advancement, and the use of the Minister’s convening power to drive high-level action on lead exposure reduction and response in Nigeria.
• Lead exposure remains one of the most significant yet preventable environmental public health threats in Nigeria, particularly affecting children under five, pregnant women, and populations exposed through environmental and consumer product pathways. Increasing evidence points to consumer products—such as cosmetics, spices, and other locally available goods—as important and under-addressed sources of exposure. 
• The Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (FMoHSW), under the leadership of the Honourable Minister of State for Health, plays a central role in coordinating national efforts to reduce lead exposure through policy development, stakeholder coordination, surveillance, and public health interventions, in collaboration with key regulatory agencies including the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC). 
• Significant progress has already been made in addressing lead exposure in Nigeria, including the development of a national lead poisoning policy and multisectoral coordination frameworks, as well as RTSL-supported efforts in laboratory capacity assessment reports and legal landscape assessments. There is now a critical need to build on these gains by accelerating implementation and strengthening enforcement of existing regulations, while advancing national policy frameworks and increasing government resource allocation—particularly for consumer product-related exposures. 

Core Tasks and Activities

• The Consultant will work closely with the Office of the Honorable Minister of State for Health, the Senior Technical Advisor,  Lead Poisoning Nigeria, the Principal Advisor, Cardiovascular Health Nigeria, the Executive Director, RTSL, Nigeria and relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), including the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) on Lead Elimination. 

Stakeholder Engagement and Coordination:

• Build on the existing stakeholder mapping to strengthen coordination among actors working to reduce lead exposure. 
• Track activities of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders, including the Inter-Agency Working Group on Lead Elimination. 
• Identify coordination gaps and support alignment of stakeholder efforts toward implementation priorities. 
• Develop recommendations on human resource and institutional strengthening needs. 

Regulatory Implementation and Enforcement Support:

• Build on the completed regulatory landscape to support the implementation of existing regulations on lead in consumer products, including cosmetics, spices, and other goods. 
• Identify key bottlenecks to effective enforcement of policies and regulations across relevant agencies and sectors. 
• Develop actionable recommendations to strengthen enforcement mechanisms and compliance. 
• Support alignment and coordination of regulatory actions across ministries and agencies. 
• Track progress on implementation of existing regulations and identify opportunities for acceleration. 

Capacity Strengthening:

• Identify priority capacity gaps that affect the implementation and enforcement of lead-related interventions. 
• Assess technical and laboratory capacity for biomonitoring, consumer product testing, environmental and ambient testing 
• Propose targeted strategies to strengthen systems, including workforce, infrastructure, and training. 

High-Level Policy Advancement and Government Program Acceleration:

• Support the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) in advancing the National Lead Policy and its Implementation Plan, with a strong emphasis on operationalization. 
• Leverage the convening power of the Office of the Honourable Minister of State for Health to facilitate coordinated high-level inter-ministerial dialogue among key ministries, agencies, and stakeholders. 
• Jointly plan and support strategic engagements, roundtables, and policy dialogues aimed at accelerating implementation and enforcement. 
• Identify priority opportunities within government systems to accelerate program delivery on lead exposure reduction. 
• Support the development of policy briefs, talking points, and strategic materials forhigh-level decision-making and advocacy. 
• Support efforts to improve government resource allocation and financing for implementation and enforcement activities. 

Coordination and Advisory Support:

• Provide technical advisory support to the Office of the Minister of State for Health on lead exposure, with emphasis on implementation and enforcement. 
• Prepare briefs, reports, and analyses on project progress to ensure the Minister and RTSL program team make informed decisions. 
• Support coordination and facilitating collaboration across relevant government ministries, departments, agencies (MDA) and partners working on lead elimination. 
• Work closely with the STA, Lead Poisoning Nigeria and the Principal Advisor, Cardiovascular Health Nigeria to ensure alignment with national priorities. 
• Support convening, documentation, and follow-up actions of IAWG meetings, regional and global convenings. 
• Contribute to policy discussions, technical briefs, and strategic documents. 
• Undertake any other related duties assigned by RTSL technical leadership in collaboration with government stakeholders. 

Qualifications

• Advanced Degrees in Public Health, Environmental Health, Toxicology, Environmental  Science, Food Safety, Public Policy, or related field. 
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant professional experience in environmental health, with demonstrated expertise in lead exposure prevention, regulatory systems, or public health programs. 
• Proven experience supporting policy implementation, government coordination, and high-level stakeholder engagement. 
• Strong experience in facilitating policy dialogues and working with senior government officials. 
• Experience working with government institutions and understanding government systems, particularly Ministries, Departments and regulatory agencies. 
• Strong understanding of public sector systems, regulatory enforcement, and policy processes. 
• Excellent analytical, communication, and technical report writing skills. 
• Ability to operate effectively in high-level policy and political environments. 
• Able to travel within Nigeria if required.

Contract Deliverables:

• Brief on stakeholder coordination status and recommendations to strengthen alignment and implementation to be shared with the Ministry. 
• Report on progress and gaps in implementation and enforcement of existing lead-related regulations, particularly for consumer products, to be shared with relevant stakeholders 
• Report on identified bottlenecks, government processes, and priority actions to accelerate regulatory enforcement to relevant stakeholders. 
• Documentation and outputs from high-level policy dialogues and stakeholder engagements facilitated through the office of the Minister of State. 
• Support senior government leadership on developing policy briefs, talking points, and advocacy materials to support senior government decision-making. 
• Provide and recommend strategies to strengthen government resource allocation and investment for implementation of lead poisoning intervention. 
• Technical inputs and documented contributions to the National Lead Policy and its Implementation Plan, with emphasis on operationalization through the   IAWG. 
• Periodic technical updates to the Office of the Minister of State Health. 
• Periodic reports, quarterly consultancy report with strategic recommendations for sustained implementation, enforcement, and national scale-up shared with RTSL 

Contract Management:

• The Independent Contractor will submit all deliverables to the Principal Advisor & Manager, CVH, Nigeria, who will manage this contract and monitor progress toward the deliverables.