Senior Advisor - National Digital Infrastructure at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

Key Responsibilities 

This is a senior role within TBI and will be held by an exceptional candidate with deep and extensive experience in government advisory and technology-enabled transformation and delivery. 

Offer development and thought leadership 

• Lead the development and evolution of TBI’s national digital Infrastructure offer strategy which defines our approach to supporting countries to develop and invest in the infrastructure backbone of a digital government and economy. 
• Identify and apply emerging trends and opportunities for digital infrastructure and keep us on the forefront of disruptive technology innovation, working in collaboration with the Tech Policy (PP) team to support their research and publication pipeline. 
• Develop internal frameworks, guides, tools, playbooks, and documents which effectively capture our offer and solutions and enable team usage adding scalability to your expert advice and input 

Technical leadership and expert support 

• Generate cohesion across our technology advisory work, capture lessons learned, and develop best practices to inform future efforts, working closely with the other GCS experts and sectoral leads and our new Global Director of Innovation. 
• Provide hands-on technical input and thought partnership to country teams in the scoping, design and delivery of digital infrastructure initiatives, (including supporting infrastructure landscape assessments and other enabling efforts) generating creative solutions, and framing them in a compelling way 
• Support country directors and teams to effectively consider, assess, and pursue national digital infrastructure initiatives as part of TBI country strategies in response to government demand or propositional solutions. 
• Quality Assure, support and troubleshoot the implementation of national digital infrastructure initiatives working collaboratively to ensure impact and that country teams can access the best of the Institute to support their work. 
• Develop, and quality assure high-calibre external facing proposal documents and deliverables working with country teams. 
• Support country teams to maintain effective and trusted government relationships which enable our delivery of cloud solutions and other digital infrastructure. Where required develop relationships with relevant country counterparts and stakeholders (e.g. ICT Ministers). 
• Provide expert input support to country teams as needed with government counterparts, 
• e.g. joining and leading workshops as an expert. Provide ongoing support to resolve strategic questions as they emerge during implementation. 

External engagement and partnerships 

• Develop and enhance our network, relationships, and partnership with leading innovators, technology companies, implementation partners, and thought leaders in the digital infrastructure space (cloud, internet, telcos) which enhance our understanding of emerging innovation and improve our offer and advise to governments 
• Represent TBI at a senior level in external conversations, forums, and partnerships 
• Lead engagements with existing and future strategic partners for Cloud Infrastructure and Internet Access, in collaboration with relevant parts of TBI.
• With Strategic Partnerships and Initiatives team, support joint strategy and partnership governance, escalating challenges when needed. 
• Support joint opportunity development for digital infrastructure solutions with our external partners and technology companies. 
• Engage with relevant external stakeholders such as other not-for-profit organisations, donors, media, suppliers, and agencies. 

Enabling Systems 

• Ensure, and support the development of, training materials and collateral to ensure TBI country teams and government counterparts understand the specifics and value addition of various digital infrastructure solutions and offers 
• Work closely with our Impact team to contribute to a learning culture which effectively captures and utilises lessons to continuously improve our work. 
• Support country and regional teams as needed to attract and hire, leading talent in support of our work, contributing to the recruit, induction and support for new hires and mentoring and coaching where needed. 
• Shape and embody a positive culture that drives innovation and delivery. Play a key role in the broader community at TBI and will be expected to build strong working relationships 

Person Specification 

• With substantial relevant experience in governments, government or technology advisory 
• Who is considered an expert and thought leader in digital infrastructure, with experience designing or leading digital transformation efforts in government 
• Who has experience in and understands public service and government functional priorities and challenges in emerging economies, with experience in Africa, Eastern Europe, and/or Asia 
• With demonstrable experience in technology enterprises or programmes 
• Who is strategic, entrepreneurial, pragmatically optimistic and can challenge the status-quo and develop plans for successful delivery of challenging, ambitious objectives 
• With outstanding management and strategy skills -- able to set strategic direction, inspire teams to collaboratively achieve exceptional objectives, and not afraid to be hands-on to achieve results 
• Who has a record of accomplishment cultivating and maintaining strategic alliances and partnerships across public, social, and private sector organisations 
• Who is a skilled communicator and influencer, from executive office level through to technical level, is adept at speaking to senior leadership 
• Adept at navigating ambiguous environments and is comfortable in a rapid growth environment and at managing up and beyond hierarchy 
• Who is comfortable speaking in public forums and representing the institute on the global stage 
• Who has worked or consulted in a range developing and emerging economies and is sensitive to a diverse range of cultural and regional norms, and fosters a positive spirit of collaboration 
• Experience engaging or working on public policy as an enabler of digital transformation (e.g. data sovereignty and privacy) 
• Who commits to business objectives and pulls out the stops to make sure they are always met 
• Comfortable to travel about 20- 30% of the time to global locations.