Senior Program Officer, Digital Public Infrastructure at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Your Role

• We seek an experienced and driven Senior Program Officer, DPI, who will collaborate strategically to co-develop and co-manage one or more portfolios of grants and contracts requiring grant management skills, monitoring, and evaluation, to support the development and scaling of DPIs in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a topical expert, you will be a technical advisor to other foundation programs seeking to implement their solutions with a DPI approach. You will also work collaboratively with a global team to contribute to refine and track progress against the team’s strategic vision. The role will require working with a diverse range of internal colleagues/teams, technical and scientific partners, governments, multilateral institutions across a wide array of domains and expertise. International experience, strategy development, communications, partnership development, and deep technical expertise are crucial for success in this role.
• The postholder will be based in Nairobi, Kenya, and report to the Director, Economic Opportunity, Africa, in close collaboration with the Director, DPI.

What You'll Do

• The selected candidate will be responsible for the following tasks:

Co-develop, manage, and execute a portfolio of relationships, grants and contracts to advance DPIs within the context of a globally matrixed team, contributing to economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Apply a rapid ‘risk-adjusted’ approach to develop a portfolio-level strategy that supports a) the testing and development of promising DPIs; b) the scaling of proven DPIs and; c) extracts learnings that can benefit internal and external stakeholders. Ensure the strategy is aligned to the overall team goals.
• Negotiate, execute, and manage a complex portfolio of grants or performance-based contracts. Review letters of inquiry and grant proposals and provide clear, concise, and insightfully written analyses and recommendations for funding.
• Consult with internal program co-owners, grantees, and other partners to maximize project impact and ensure grants are meeting strategy goals; this may include conducting site visits, providing operational guidance, and convening meetings of key stakeholders.
• Co-develop, manage, resource, and implement a program that aligns with foundation strategy and is operationally integrated with other foundation programs across the matrix; contribute to the design of new strategies, collaborations, and implementation plans to ensure long-term sustainability and impact.
• Advise the foundation leadership on areas related to your expertise, including writing and producing briefings, reports, updates, and other materials.

Represent the foundation to key program-related external constituencies, as appropriate, on committees related to the area of expertise and responsibilities of the position.

• In alignment with other internal program teams, work with partner organizations (e.g., technical experts, researchers, etc.) and key government partners to support data-driven decision making and long-term capacity building efforts on inclusive digital strategy within government.
• Develop anchor partners for digital collaborations and ecosystem development, both at the national level and in foundation priority states within countries, while staying aligned with the overall strategy.
• Serve as a point of contact on issues for internal and external collaborators, working within the complex matrix-style organization across the foundation.

Provide technical expertise to other foundation programs seeking to implement digital strategies aligned to a DPI approach.

• Provide input and review on all to other foundation teams and programmatic focus areas interested in implementing DPI.
• Lead the intake process, provide expertise on decisions related to digital public goods and the DPI approach, technical architecture of solutions, understanding of open source solutions within the DPI stack.
• Manage a bench of subject matter experts that can provide deeper technical assessment.

Contribute to building a cohesive, high-impact, cross-foundation team focused on innovation and scaling of inclusive DPI in priority geographies and ensuring sustainability of the supporting ecosystem.

• Model the values and practices of a culture that promotes inclusivity, rigor, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Work closely with both the Seattle-based DPI team and the regional and country teams to advance shared work
• Other duties as assigned.

Your Experience

• We are looking for a recognized global professional with deep expertise about DPIs in low-and middle-income countries. Additional knowledge and skills include:
• Advanced degree required with 10+ years of demonstrated experience in a senior technical advisory role in Africa, ideally for tech companies, government, consultancy, think tanks, NGOs or similar.
• Depth of technical, economic, and political understanding of the DPI ecosystem in Africa and how it is evolving in priority geographies - including key trends, barriers, and opportunities to test high impact use cases for under-resourced and underserved populations.
• Depth of knowledge of low-and-middle income contexts, as well as the experience of historically marginalized groups (e.g. women, poor, rural).
• Experience with social impact investing and an eye towards impact for marginalized groups, scale, and sustainability.
• Can collaborate effectively and with diplomacy to produce high-quality, high-impact outputs in a matrixed organization.
• Excellent strategic thinker and strategy development experience.
• Experience managing grant portfolios and an understanding of the role of donors in advancing DPI efforts, is desirable.
• Demonstrated ability to organize/prioritize work and meet deadlines within a fast-paced environment with multiple and competing demands.
• An innovative thinker who is hands-on and willing to go as deep or broad as necessary to achieve outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to question and challenge colleagues in a constructive manner.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English, able to effectively synthesize information to reach diverse audiences and create consensus.