Position Overview
Educate! is seeking an ambitious and experienced leader and systems-builder to provide organization-wide oversight on program quality, monitoring, and program implementation at scale. As Educate!’s Regional Head of Program Quality (RHPQ), you’ll help solidify our successes and chart our future growth, building on our strengths in program management and execution and pursuing new opportunities to deepen and expand our impact. The RHPQ will report to the Managing Director and join a driven, high-performing leadership team.
The right person for this role will come with experience leading and managing teams across different functional and geographic units, will be excellent at coordinating multiple areas of strategy and execution, and will lead collaboration among directors, manager and their teams to solve some of the organizations biggest challenges related to programming and scale. With at least 6-8 years of dynamic experience (10+ years preferred), the RHPQ will have worked in a startup environment and built program management systems. You’ll have experience managing and coaching teams and be able to bridge the gaps between strategy and execution in a new program or project.
Performance Objectives
Program Quality Oversight
Work with programs teams to create standards of program quality that can be effectively managed to at scale.
Keep a pulse on program performance to ensure quality is maintained through aggressive growth.
Work to develop and integrate soft-measures of quality
Program Execution Oversight
Work with programs teams to create strategies for field-staff accountability
Work with Program Directors to test and implement strategies that reduce program operating costs while maintaining impact
Review budget analytics and support creation of strategies to drive cost per student down, increasing impact for each dollar we spend
For young country operations, review program budgets against program design to ensure all costs are captured
Support Country Directors to meet timeline for budget submission
Work with new countries to develop effective systems of communication
Support new country operations in creating a culture of open and honest communication, and meeting structures that focus on mentor-centered management.
Expansion & Special Projects
Lead country scouting for new country expansion
During times of aggressive growth, support new countries and young countries in planning and executing against plans
Work with the external relations team to ensure program design is accurately translated into grant applications and proposals- especially for new programs and technical grants
Support in the development of budgets for grants
Lead launch of new programs or projects in new or existing countries of operation
Qualifications
At least 5-8 years of diverse work experience (10+ preferred)
Experience in program management required (experience in youth or education programs is a plus, but not required)
Proven ability to identify and build systems/structures needed to drive programmatic and organization efficiency, effectiveness and scale – such as KPIs / performance dashboards, recruitment plans, training plans
Track record of thriving and achieving results in fast changing high-growth environments at a time of scale
Open to short-term relocation or stints of heavy travel when necessary to launch a new program or project
Experience living and working in East Africa (East African candidates preferred)
Fits our Five Cultural Tenets (see What is Educate! About? below); Learn more by looking at Educate!’s culture deck here
Terms
Based in East Africa (Nairobi preferred, flexible to be based in Kampala or Kigali)
Compensation will be competitive for the social enterprise sector and commensurate with experience.
Why You Will Brag About Working At Educate!
We’ve got the impact.
Educate! is designed for scale. We quadrupled operations in 2014, going from 54 to more than 200 schools served. We carefully measure our outcomes, and — here’s the best part — we are maintaining quality at four times the size.We believe in local leadership — 97% of our on the ground staff is African.Our model has gone nationwide in Uganda — Educate!’s model is now incorporated into the national curriculum and exams, impacting thousands more students than we can reach directly.Educate is a well-oiled learning machine. We built our model by methodically testing hundreds of assumptions and we are constantly experimenting, evaluating, and improving.We’re honored that luminaries and leaders like Oliver Wonekha, the Ugandan Ambassador to the US, and Ann Veneman, a former Secretary of Agriculture and head of Unicef, believe in us enough to have joined our advisory board.
