Senior Manager – Health, Africa at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

Role Summary

• The Senior Manager – Health is a senior expert role within TBI Africa. The role will work closely with Africa leadership to shape and advance TBI’s health portfolio across the continent.
• You will collaborate with global experts across TBI, the fundraising team, and country and project teams to develop, refine, and align solutions for political leaders in the health sector.
• You will provide globally recognised, practical subject-matter expertise to TBI country teams and clients. This will support client engagements, programme and project design, key deliverables and fundraising activity, ensuring that we consistently bring the best of TBI to our health work in Africa.
• To succeed in this role, you will engage collaboratively across advisory, policy, and politics teams to deliver bold, evidence-based solutions, drawing on TBI’s growing body of thought leadership and strategic partnerships.
• This is a largely client-facing role and involves significant international travel (approximately 30%).

Key Responsibilities

• This is a senior role within TBI, suited to an exceptional candidate with deep experience and strong networks across in the health sector in Africa.

Subject-Matter Expertise

• Act as a technical expert and thought partner to advisory teams across Africa, advancing a portfolio of work aligned with senior political leaders’ priorities in health reform and institutional capacity strengthening, and enabling better care for the public.
• Develop innovative, practical solutions to client challenges and present them in a compelling manner
• Engage, as needed, with senior stakeholders (e.g. Heads of State, Ministers, and other senior officials) to advance projects and solutions
• Support Advisory leadership in delivering high-quality advice, including ideation and problem-solving to ensure excellence in delivery and real-world impact.
• Contribute subject-matter expertise to support recruitment of health specialists across the organisation, including in-country embedded advisors
• Play an active role in the TBI global Health community beyond Africa, contributing to global strategy and sharing knowledge generated from our work in Africa with other regions.

Offer and Solution Development

• Work with Africa leadership, Global Experts health team and country teams to continuously strengthen and evolve TBI’s health offer, including addressing challenges related to cost, quality of care, delivery methodology, and technology adoption.
• Lead the design and development of programmes to deliver high-impact projects, complementing hands-on advisory support
• Identify emerging trends and opportunities to inform new solutions, drawing on TBI’s global community of practice
• Collaborate with Global team colleagues across functional and sectoral areas to develop integrated solutions to complex, cross-cutting challenges

Leading TBI Africa’s Health Community of Practice

• Capture and codify best practices across the portfolio, creating agile feedback loops to strengthen solutions and delivery (in collaboration with performance and impact teams)
• Lead the Health Community of Practice in TBI Africa, contributing to institutional knowledge and cross-sector learning
• Collaborate with the global health practitioners group and Global Experts health team to ensure effective knowledge sharing across the organisation
• Support robust data stewardship of health programmes across country and regional teams
• Deploy expertise, understanding and networks in African regional and global health organisations to support positioning of our country work.

Internal Leadership

• Provide leadership and, where applicable, line management to advisors, associates, and junior staff
• Lead programme development and oversee implementation.
• Foster a positive, high-performance culture that drives innovation and delivery
• Contribute to broader Institute priorities by providing practical insights and recommendations to strengthen TBI’s global health work and policy initiatives

Business Development and Relationship Management

• Work closely with regional and global account management teams to develop impactful health programmes aligned with political leaders’ priorities at country and regional levels
• Lead business development efforts and implementation of TBI’s fundraising strategy in collaboration with leadership and fundraising teams. Build and deploy personal networks to proactively engage with potential funders, identifying priorities and funding opportunities.
• Working with others, secure funding for TBI’s health work in Africa, growing our revenue in health.
• Manage relationships with technical leads and focal points in partner organisations involved in co-implementation, as well as in relevant regional health organisations.
• Maintain relationships with technical counterparts and investment leads from institutional donors, as required.

External Engagement and Partnerships

• Represent TBI as a senior subject-matter expert at high-profile external events, including delivering presentations
• Work with Africa leadership to strengthen networks and partnerships with leading health innovators and stakeholders
• Engage with donors, non-profit organisations, media, suppliers, and other external partners to support TBI’s strategic and financial objectives

Person Specification
The successful candidate will demonstrate:

• Extensive practical experience in the health sector in Africa, advising political leaders on complex public health and innovation challenges, or experience in government or leading advisory organisations
• Credibility across a wide range of health topics, with deep expertise in one or more areas.
• Strong understanding of emerging innovations and technologies in health, with the ability to support leaders in scaling these solutions
• A well-developed problem-solving toolkit, with the ability to design creative solutions to complex challenges and lead large programmes of work to a successful conclusion.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence diverse audiences
• Strong attention to detail and a proven ability to deliver high-quality outputs under tight deadlines
• Recognised thought leadership, with the ability to represent the Institute through publications and high-level engagements
• Effective leadership skills, with a willingness to be hands-on to achieve results
• Ability to communicate and influence at all levels, from senior executives to technical teams.
• Comfort working in ambiguous, fast-paced, and matrixed environments, with the ability to drive impact at scale
• A track record of building and sustaining strategic partnerships across public, private, and non-profit sectors, preferably including fundraising
• Experience working across multiple countries in Africa, and in diverse resource settings is desirable

Additional Requirements

• Fluency in English is required; proficiency in an additional language is an advantage
• Willingness to travel internationally (approximately 30%)