Regional Director, Program Delivery Africa at Splash International

• The Regional Director, Program Delivery Africa provides strategic and operational leadership to ensure high quality, on time, and on budget delivery of Project WISE II across Splash’s African countries. This role translates global program strategy into country specific delivery plans, supports Country Directors in overcoming operational challenges, and ensures that infrastructure, behavior change, and systems strengthening components are delivered as an integrated, high quality package.

Roles & Responsibilities 

• Regional Program Leadership & Strategy Execution
• Translate Splash’s global WISE II framework into practical, sequenced regional and country specific delivery plans.
• Ensure alignment across infrastructure, behavior change, and systems to strengthen components.
• Sets and enforces delivery expectations with in-country program and infrastructure managers, leads formal milestone reviews, and intervenes directly when execution is at risk.
• Leads formal recovery plans when milestones are missed and holds responsible teams accountable for corrective action.
• Identify operational bottlenecks and work with Country Directors to resolve issues rapidly.
• Promote a culture of data driven delivery, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure milestones and quality standards are met consistently across all countries.
• Program Quality, Impact & Accountability
• Owns unit-cost performance, cost variance, and capital efficiency across all deployments, and drives corrective action when projects drift.
• Maintains clear regional cost benchmarks and enforces corrective action when projects exceed approved thresholds.
• Lead regional review cycles to monitor progress, risks, and impact indicators.
• Ensure program delivery is on time, on budget, and aligned with donor commitments and MOUs.
• Strengthen quality assurance frameworks across infrastructure, behavior change, and O&M readiness.
• Maintain high standards of safeguarding, inclusivity, and child protection across all program activities.
• Infrastructure Delivery Oversight & Governance
• Provide regional oversight of WASH infrastructure delivery and ensure adherence to Splash standards.
• Support country teams in contractor management, QA/QC systems, HSE compliance, and site level issue resolution.
• Ensure O&M planning is integrated from the outset and supported by national and subnational partners.
• Work closely with the Global Infrastructure Director to maintain engineering consistency and cost efficient standards.
• Behavior Change & Menstrual Health (MH) Leadership
• Ensure Behavior Change (BC) programming is integrated with infrastructure delivery and aligned with curricula.
• Support country teams in strengthening teacher engagement, school ownership, and student led hygiene initiatives.
• Ensure MH programming is culturally appropriate, context specific, and delivered with fidelity.
• Coordinate with the Global Behavior Change Director to harmonize tools and training.
• Government Partnership & Systems Strengthening
• Support Country Directors in developing, testing, and strengthening systems with implementing partners.
• Strengthen partner performance management, contract delivery, and quality assurance processes.
• Facilitate learning exchanges and ensure high value lessons are captured, synthesized, and shared across countries.
• Promote consistency in how country teams operationalize Splash’s delivery model.
• People Leadership & Capacity Building
• Leads multi-country teams of Infrastructure and Program Managers fostering a culture of high performance.
• Provides direct support to Country Directors to navigate complex operational bottlenecks and high-stakes decision-making.
• Identifies regional capacity gaps and drives investments in training, tools, and professional development to ensure the team is future-ready.
• Cross-Functional & Matrix Collaboration
• Operates in a high-touch matrix with Global Directors (Infrastructure and Behavior Change) to ensure regional execution meets global technical excellence and innovation standards.
• Partners with Regional Finance and Operations to manage complex budgets, multi-country procurement, and compliance.
• Collaborates with MERL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning) and Fundraising teams to ensure that real-world delivery data informs future proposals and global learning.
• Establishes clear decision rights and communication protocols between regional headquarters, country offices, and the global leadership team.
• Partnership Stewardship & Regional Learning
• Oversees the selection and management of local implementing partners, ensuring they are not just "contractors" but are fully aligned with Splash’s values and quality standards.
• Creates a structured way for country teams to share what’s working and what isn’t.
• Acts as the regional editor for lessons learned. Instead of just sharing every report, the Director identifies the high-impact "nuggets" of wisdom—technical or behavioral—that should be scaled across Project WISE II.
• Identifies where local partners may be struggling and directs resources or training to help them improve, ensuring the entire "delivery ecosystem" gets stronger over time.
• Uses the lessons from the field to provide real-world evidence for donor reports and high-level government meetings, proving that our model is both effective and adaptable.

Qualifications

Core Competencies

• Exceptional ability to lead across a matrix structure, influencing global technical teams and local country directors simultaneously without direct line-authority in every instance.
• A data-driven mindset. This candidate lives by KPIs and Gantt charts but uses them as tools for adaptive management rather than just static reporting.
• A high degree of emotional intelligence (EQ) and cultural humility. They must be as comfortable presenting in a Ministry boardroom, collaborating with the local implementing partners as they are conducting a site visit at a rural school.
• The ability to see "around the corner"—identifying potential supply chain, political, or financial risks before they impact delivery timelines.

Education

• A master's degree in international development, Public Health, Engineering, Public Administration, or a related field is expected.

Experience and Background

• Proven Leadership in Scale: 10–15+ years of progressive leadership experience in international development, specifically overseeing large-scale, multi-country WASH, BC and MH portfolios.
• Regional Expertise: A deep understanding of the socio-political and operational landscapes of Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Technical Versatility: While not necessarily a specialized engineer, the candidate must possess the "technical literacy" to lead both high-stakes construction projects and complex behavioral science initiatives.
• Government & Policy Influence: A track record of engaging with National Ministries and city-level authorities to move programs from "non-profit initiatives" to "government-owned systems."