Deputy Country Director at Educate!

Job description

Position Overview

As Deputy Country Director, you'll be at the forefront of a talented and ambitious young team that has successfully launched Educate!'s program in Kenya and is poised for tremendous growth and impact in the coming years.

You will lead the execution and creation of new strategies to lead the scaling of our programs in Kenya. You will ensure we are building and experimenting with diverse systems to optimize our processes ensuring maximum efficiency and effectiveness as we scale. In addition, you are responsible to lead, coach, inspire and build a passionate and results oriented team that will drive the realization of our ambition over the next few years. In collaboration with the rest of the team, you will identify, build and sustain relationships with all relevant stakeholders needed for our program success.

You'll also join a dynamic leadership team committed to organizational and professional growth. The right person will be a strong leader with at least 7-10+ years of dynamic experience and a proven track record of managing a team to achieve results and thrive in a fast-changing environment.

Performance Objectives

• Lead strategy implementation to drive transformative impact
• Working with executive and in-country leadership teams, set strategy to maximize success towards Educate!'s vision of measurably impacting 1 million students annually by 2024
• Prioritize country activities based on Educate!'s strategic plan
• Identify and act on opportunities to advance Educate!'s strategy in Kenya
• Ensure country-wide performance on strategic objectives across the organization
• Collaborate with management team to implement global functional initiatives to ensure successful completion of top organization-wide objectives
• Clearly articulate Educate! Kenya's vision internally and manage changes in country activities to maintain strong team alignment and engagement
• Lead country-wide operations to drive world-class team performance
• Provide financial leadership to maintain a stringent environment of financial management and integrity
• Quickly address employee performance issues with a caring approach and an eye towards their improvement, while being comfortable exiting non-performers to drive highest quality team performance and growth
• Ensure tight financial management in line with Educate! culture
• Manage financial constraints strategically to optimize impact against cost and position Educate! to continue to accelerate growth year over year
• Exemplify clear and consistent communication to all levels of the organization
• Oversee strategic management of key risks facing the organization
• Program Implementation Strategy & Evaluation
• Responsible for planning, reviewing and prioritizing our mid and long term goals for program success.
• Set growth and staffing strategy in line with country 3-year objectives and revenue strategy.
• Oversee country evaluation strategy and ensure strategy responds to impact data.
• Identify and propose systems/structures for experimentation to create efficient delivery mechanisms.
• Leverage local government actors for implementation and events for increased profile.
• Performance Management
• Build, lead and coach a highly results oriented team to deliver our goals
• Field team recruitment and training strategies to ensure high-quality deliverance and scalable cost model.
• Conduct performance management of coordinators and fair and accurate performance reviews for team.
• High-growth staffing strategy: coverage of gaps, career planning for star performers, developing rising leaders, pipelines, and ensuring training and coaching programs are in place.

Qualifications And Profile

• Dynamic experience highly preferred, with demonstrated ability to operate well in complex and fast-changing environments
• At least 7-10 years work experience, with 5+ years of management and/or leadership experience
• Financial integrity and budget management experience
• Passion for Educate!'s mission is a must, but past work in education or youth development is not required. We value diverse perspectives and encourage applications from people with a variety of backgrounds.
• Fits our Five Cultural Tenets (see What is Educate! About? below); Learn more by looking at Educate!'s culture deck here
• Kenyan candidates strongly preferred

Terms

• Compensation will be competitive and commensurate with experience
• Benefits include medical insurance
• This position will be based in Nairobi

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 — 96% of our staff is African.
Our model goes national. In 2012 Educate! partnered with Uganda's government to integrate curriculum and a student business club structure into Uganda's entrepreneurship course nationally, in 2015 we served as a technical advisor to Rwanda on its secondary education reform, and in 2016 we began serving as a technical advisor to Kenya on its national curriculum reform.
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 US Secretary of Agriculture and head of Unicef, believe in us enough to have joined our advisory board.

What Is Educate! About?

We're ambitious. Are you? Educate! is growing fast, so new opportunities are opening up and expanding all the time. We're inspired by people with drive, and we love to help them reach their full potential. We expect everyone at Educate! to contribute above and beyond their job description, grow their skills, and advance their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey.

We Put Youth First - The youth we serve come first. Always. In everything. That means we wake up thinking of ways we can serve youth even better and get the highest impact out of every dollar that we spend. It means Educate! doesn't own a single vehicle, because we'd rather take the bus if it means one more student can participate. It means making every decision like the future depends on it — because if we get our way, it does.
We Are Always Learning - When you work at Educate!, educating yourself is part of your job too. We encourage every employee to find the best book on management; share the latest article on graphic design; bring in your favorite college mentor; or meet the researcher pushing the edge of the field. We are always thirsty for knowledge and love to share
We Only Solve a Problem Once - We are allergic to band-aids so we love the person who brings the new system to solve the problem for good, even problems we haven't recognized yet.
We Are Flexible - We thrive on change — we're driving it. We are growing every day, so we have to adapt quickly to meet new challenges, and our team keeps up.
We Exceed Expectations - We assume we can achieve the impossible because we already have, year after year. We want our staff to create your own challenges, ask the toughest questions, and dream scary big!

Every person at Educate! — from interns to the executive director — is evaluated by how they live up to these five cultural tenets. They are at the core of how we achieve our mission and why we work as well as we do.

Educate is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all who interact in our community. In creating this environment, we encourage people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and life experiences to join our diverse team.