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The Mastercard Foundation seeks a world where everyone has the opportunity to learn and prosper.
All people, no matter where their starting point in life, should have an equal chance to succeed. We believe that with access to education, financial services, and skills training, people can have that chance.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Reporting to the Regional Director, the Country Head is the most senior representative of the Foundation in the country. The role comes at an exciting time of growth for the Foundation as it implements its new strategy, Young Africa Works, aimed at addressing youth unemployment in Africa.
The Country Head will initiate and lead the development and execution of the country-based program to address the challenge of youth unemployment facing the country while establishing and expanding the profile of the Foundation. In light of the magnitude of the employment challenge, this person must create strategies to achieve scaled impact and high degree of effectiveness of deployment of Foundation resources. The Country Head will work closely with Program leadership to leverage resources and expertise of other stakeholders – employers, educators and youth leaders. – and be accountable for the delivery of results.
To be successful the Country Head will collaborate with other Foundation Country Representatives in the region and with heads of departments at the Foundation who are based in Toronto and in the Africa Hub. This includes other Program areas, Impact. Finance, Human Resources, Communications, and Strategy and Learning. This role will exemplify and promote the Foundation’s values and culture, which is highly collaborative, promotes listening and learning, and focuses on results.
WAYS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE
Strategy & Vision
- Establish and maintain a clear vision for Young Africa Works in Kenya, aligned with country priorities, relevant to market and economic realities encountered by young people, in particular young women, impacted by unemployment and under employment.
- Develop and maintain a holistic country strategy, underpinned with strategic and intermediate priorities, within a structured roadmap for implementation
- Embed into the country strategy and roadmap a contextualized Impact construct to enable institutional, community and individual level shift that will address the root causes of unemployment and underemployment of young people, in particular young women
- Mobilize Learning and Research agenda to inform Young Africa Works in Kenya partnership strategies, generate evidence of programmatic impact, inform program adaptation and learning and promote internal and external learnings,
- Recognize opportunities for innovative action and create and nurture an environment where alternative viewpoints are welcomed.
Delivery of Partnerships
- Translate the country roadmap into a portfolio of partnerships through a robust co-creations process, leveraging the Foundations established processes.
- Lead implementation of Mastercard Foundations’ Young Africa Works partnerships focused on support for implementation partners to deliver on committed work plans.
- Provide targeted guidance and expertise to country programs teams to ensure the effective implementation of Young Africa Works partnerships to include, timely and transparent impact assessment, and the capture and utilization of learnings to inform programmatic design consideration and adaptation.
- Drive implementation activities adhere to all Mastercard Foundation partnership quality standards and best practices, i.e., the Foundations Safeguarding Policies.
- Create and maintain systems ensuring effective and transparent reporting (narrative and empirical) for internal Foundation use as well as onward reporting to the Foundations Board.
- Enable conditions for learning within and across Young Africa Works partnerships.
- Establish a safe environment for sharing of ideas, solutions, and difficulties and the capacity to detect, analyze and respond quickly to challenges.
Influence & Representation
- Deliver periodic written narratives to the Board of the Mastercard Foundation to represent the development and progress of Young Africa Works in
- Represent Mastercard Foundation at external events and meetings to highlight the work of the Foundation and share the impact and outcomes of Young Africa Works and other Foundation programs.
- Lead the outreach and representation to a variety of forums related to Young Africa Works to share the Foundation’s learnings.
- Develop, enhance and steward a relationship with government, private sector, civil society, and donor type organization stakeholders.
- Guide and support to deliver on a communications plan to disseminate Young Africa Works Kenya, learning through various forms of media and speaking engagements.
- Demonstrate flexibility, resilience and ability to maintain positive relationships and composure.
- Maintain high ethical standards and treat people with respect and dignity.
People Leadership
- Create and sustain a work environment commensurate with the Foundations values and policies where team members strive to achieve excellence.
- Build and maintain a cohesive cross functional team.
- Promote accountability, communicate expectations, and provide constructive feedback via performance reviews.
- Identify performance gaps and training opportunities for staff, partners with the Foundation People & Culture staff and ensure the design and delivery of high-quality learning, mentoring solutions.
- Provide team members with information, tools, and other resources to improve performance & reach objectives.
- Provide overall leadership to a broad team of Mastercard Foundation staff based in Kenya ensuring synergy, sharing of best practices and resources.
WHO YOU ARE
- Over fifteen (15) years of experience of significant management experience at a senior level in global organizations with strong leadership experience in development and/or private sector environment.
- Ten (10) years of exceptional leadership experience, building and managing high performing teams.
- Demonstrated financial management experience including preparation and management of budgets, contracts, etc.
- Senior level experience in Africa and with exposure to regional /multi country topics
- Advanced expertise working with Kenya government, development, political and social issues of the Country.
- Solution based approach while demonstrating innovation, integrity, quality, creativity, flexibility and resilience.
- Fluency in English and local Kenyan language relevant to the country and work.
- Proven experience effectively engaging with high-level government officials, key partners, media, business leaders and other influential personalities.
- Excellent strategic planning skills with the ability to merge technical and operational demands of the program into a cohesive structure.
- Excellent analytical skills with the ability to express facts and ideas in a clear, convincing and organized manner.
- Demonstrated success at facilitating organizational change as well as building and managing high performing teams in a growing office with proven success.
- Flexible, adaptable, and able to execute a range of job duties and changing priorities.
- Proven excellence in verbal, written, and presentation skills with the ability to articulate information to a variety of constituents across cultures and to distill complex information and data into accessible conversation and written pieces.
- Possess professional maturity, sensitivity with different cultures, and impeccable integrity that exemplify the Foundation’s values.
- Experience supporting technical capacity and skill development amongst diverse teams.
- You have a commitment to Mastercard Foundation’s values and vision.
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THE OPPORTUNITY
The Program Lead, Agriculture report to the Country Head. They will be responsible for specific agriculture program(s) that provide solutions to address the constraints preventing agricultural systems from functioning effectively and focused on the Foundation’s commitment to enable dignified and fulfilling work for young women and young people in general. She/he will provide expertise and interact effectively with senior levels of partner organizations and ecosystem stakeholders to advance the development and delivery of the Foundation’s country strategy.
WAYS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE
WHO YOU ARE
- Master’s degree or equivalent experience in Finance, Business, Agricultural Economics and/or Financial Inclusion.
- Minimum ten (10) years of relevant experience in agricultural companies, agribusiness, agri-finance and agriculture value chains is required.
- Minimum 5 years of leadership and management experience
- Experience working in commercial agricultural companies operational in Africa.
- Demonstrates a strong understanding of the agriculture market system and the role of system players including financial inclusion in economic growth and development and the lives and livelihood of smallholder farmers.
- Understands market and systemic challenges of the agriculture, agri-food system and agribusiness in Kenya, the EAC and Africa and best practices for addressing them
- Experience and understanding in a variety of value chains (cash and food crops), the small businesses and SMEs along the value chain, and supply chain / logistics in the agri-food system.
- Understanding of the role agri-food and rural SMEs can play in economic transformation and job creation for youth.
- Demonstrates a strong understanding of agricultural markets in Africa and the systemic challenges leading to stagnant growth.
- Demonstrates strong analytical skills, the ability to think strategically and contribute as a thought partner in the Foundation’s strategy development.
- Demonstrates strong budgeting skills with the ability to manage a large portfolio of assets.
- Command of quantitative and qualitative business analytics.
- Excellent project management skills, including multi-stakeholder projects.
- Possess excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills with the ability to articulate information to a variety of constituents across cultures.
- Excellent people skills, ability to coordinate technical and cross-functional teams
- Excellent listening and interpersonal skills required.
- Bilingual English oral and written language skills preferred. Ability to speak a local language is highly preferred.
- Possess professional maturity, sensitivity with different cultures, and impeccable integrity.
- Committed to Mastercard Foundation’s values and vision.
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