Project Director, Kenya Human Resources for Health (HRH) at Palladium International

The Project Director will provide overall strategic, technical leadership, and oversight to the program. S/he must have an appropriate balance of technical, managerial, and interpersonal skills and experience. The Project Director must have depth and breadth of technical expertise and experience in designing and implementing comprehensive public health interventions, and related capacity strengthening. The Project Director must have technical expertise in one of the five technical areas – health workforce management, quality improvement, HRH information systems, health financing, or community health services. She/he must have the requisite management expertise, interpersonal skills, and established professional relationships to successfully implement the project. Having the capacity to successfully interact with host country agencies, including national and county government, development partners, civil society and community-based organizations is essential. The skills and experience of the Project Director must be complementary to those of the Deputy Project Director.

The ideal candidate will have the senior level project management experience and the technical depth in human resources for health (HRH) program implementation that focuses on workforce management, improving quality of care, human resource information systems and digital tools that support the health workforce performance. In addition, the candidate will be a recognized leader in the HRH space and have experience networking with Government of Kenya and other key stakeholders.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Assumes overall responsibility for the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of project activities.
• Provide technical leadership in health workforce management, quality improvement, HRH information systems, health financing, or community health services.
• Serves as the main interface between the project and USG, host government stakeholders and Palladium senior management.
• Assume responsibility for partner management ensuring that partners are fully engaged and participate in the project.
• Responsible for overseeing completion and submission of quality technical deliverables and reports
• Responsible for overseeing project budget and finances including timely financial performance reporting, budget projections and project spending.
• Represent the project at relevant professional meetings, working groups and seminars.
• Prepare analyses, recommendations, briefing notes, white papers, and assessments for internal and client use.

Position Requirements

• Extensive progressively increasing responsibility in public health with at least 5 years’ experience in a senior leadership position on a project that focuses on health workforce in Kenya or similar settings.
• Previous chief of party or senior health project experience.
• Recognized leader in health workforce development and management.
• Demonstrated oral and written communication abilities are essential as the Project Director will hold ultimate responsibility for the quality and timeliness of project reporting and communication efforts.
• Demonstrated organizational and analytical skills, and ability to build synergies across technical disciplines and teams.
• Demonstrated management and supervisory experience of a relevant scope and scale.
• Oversight of local capacity development efforts, including working with local partners to ensure adherence to all sub-award and grant-management requirements.
• Experience in interacting with host country agencies, including national and county government, development partners, civil society and community-based organizations is essential.
• Knowledge of country-led development approaches and stakeholder engagement models
• Knowledge of USG regulations and administrative procedures.
• Experience building a creative and talented team and leading toward a unified vision.
• Prior experience developing strategic plans, workplans, and/or activity plans for large workforce development programs.
• Ability to communicate effectively and high comfort level writing and presenting data and information in a compelling way to different audiences.
• Excellent written and spoken English and ability to communicate across technical disciplines and non-technical audience required.