Engagement Director - Health at Busara Center

About the role 

Engagement Directors are the primary leaders of projects at Busara, responsible for driving the planning, strategy, and trajectory of Busara’s engagements. They have two core responsibilities: running an active portfolio of projects, and developing partnerships for new engagements. 

Each Engagement Director leads a team of analysts and associates to execute on our projects, which entail applying rigorous research methods to identify novel, evidence-based solutions to behavioral challenges.  As such, Engagement Directors should have strong management skills, extensive experience in applied behavioral science, and the ability to translate academic research into practical interventions.

Additionally, Engagement Directors take a significant role in supporting the growth and sustainability of Busara globally.  As you hone your industry and technical expertise, you will help build valuable relationships that generate business opportunities for Busara. Engagement Directors have a great deal of autonomy in the partnerships they build and as they help shape the strategy for the organization going forward. 

Lastly, Engagement Directors play a crucial role in the organization as members of the senior management team. They are critical to developing organizational strategy, defining expansion and growth priorities, and supporting internal processes such as hiring, recruiting, and coaching.

What you’ll be responsible for:

In this role, you’ll drive Busara’s Health portfolio. Busara has a strong health portfolio from vaccines, to digital health, to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, and we’re looking for someone to take the portfolio to the next level.  You would both build that portfolio and the team by pursuing opportunities to apply behavioral for social good, and by ensuring that we deliver on that promise by hiring and supervising excellent people.

In particular, some of the core responsibilities are to:

• Lead a portfolio of health projects across multiple client bases (researchers, private sector, government, etc). This includes identifying areas of interest, designing projects via proposals to funders, then delivering on successful proposals with applied behavioral science that is rigorous and thoughtful.
• Manage, motivate, and coach a team of Associates and Analysts to execute projects in your portfolio.  This team will be distributed across the globe, which creates both opportunities and challenges as a Manager. You’ll need to assemble team members on specific projects to match skills and interests, and to ensure excellence throughout.
• Stay current on the latest research in qualitative and quantitative methods, behavioral science, psychology, economics, and international development to provide creative direction for projects. You’ll then use this expertise to ensure the quality of all products produced by the team, through regular feedback and direct contributions as appropriate.   
• Develop lasting relationships with clients and partners, to build long-term partnerships and promote behavioral science as a tool within their organizations.  This includes serving as the primary points of contact on large, multi-year projects, and networking throughout the field at conferences and client meetings.
• Serve as a core member of the senior management team, responsible for setting organizational strategy, holding other team members accountable, and making senior hiring decisions.
• Drive the strategy of the Projects Division by setting annual targets, managing any team building events, and ensuring clear, division harmony on priorities for the organization.  Help identify markets of interest, future service lines, and priority investments.

To do this well, you should:

Your formal background, frankly, is not a criteria. We do not 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 an experienced leader in applied behavioral science and/or behavioral design.  You should deeply understand the behavioral research literature, and know how to contextualize and practically apply it to real products, communications and services.   
• Be keen to develop and deliver on high impact projects that leverage behavioral science for poverty alleviation, particularly in the Global South. 
• Have led at least a moderate sized team (5 to 10) of people, especially with multicultural and multinational backgrounds, and can mentor mid-level staff and young professionals.
• Know how to build and manage relationships with external partners and funders of diverse backgrounds and interests, especially within the health sector.
• Have direct experience working in one or more of the substantive areas of international development (e.g., sustainability, financial services, healthcare, gender equity, agriculture), either within development itself or in the business or non-profit sector. Ideally within the health sector in the Global South.
• Ideally, have previous experience in a client-delivery role (e.g. management consulting, internal innovation team, etc.).
• Ideally, have previous experience running randomized controlled trials or lab experiments.

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

• The knowledge that 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 5 years of  work experience.